I have Considered Attentively the Copies of the letters you were so good as to Lend me Relative to the Attachements at Nantes and L’Orient. I was in hopes the Ministers woud have discharged them on National Grounds and were I to make farther Applications it need only be by sending Copies of what I wrote more than a Year ago, both Transactions have been explained Very Minutely, and I know nothing that Can be added. The last letter which I deliverd to M: De Vergennes from Doctor Franklin was so full and so Clear that I thought the Affair woud have been Ended in a few Days, and I have since Inclosed to the Marechal de Castries the papers which he wish’d to see relative to the Seizure at Nantes with a Protest which I made there in December last—I Come to the point at once, I do not think that any of the Attachments ought to have been suffered to lye an hour. The Claims made by Forsters and Puchelling were Neither of them well founded, and if they were surely Individuals ought not to be suffer’d to attach the Property of Sovereign Powers in Alliance—Especially Arms during the Time of War—I do not believe the Attachments were laid on Merely to defeat the Veiws of the United States in forwarding the Arms purchased in this Country to America but I am sure it is a most dangerous power for an Individual to have, and perhaps it may be an object of sufficient magnitude to have settled by an additional article when the Commissioners meet, if it is Not already done by the Customs and Laws of Nations— I am with Very great regard. Dear Sir Your Most Obed.