I received some days ago a Letter from the Cte de Campomanes in answer to the one which your Excellency put into my hands for him; As I had in prospect an occasion of sending it by an extraordinary Courier I have taken the Liberty to detain this Letter until the moment of the Departure of the Courier. The packet would have cost your Excellency an extraordinary postage, and as I had been instrumental in bringing you into this Correspondence, I did not wish to engage your Excellency to pay more than was necessary for the proofs of my desire to contribute to your satisfaction. It is with the highest pleasure I can assure you that your Name is in veneration here, your confidence and esteem are my passports to all the Literati. I beg your Excellency to answer Campomanes as soon as your Leisure will permit you and to answer generally as a well wisher to every measure taken for the encouragement of Agriculture and the Sciences here. If my information from America is just, I hope your Excellency will have the satisfaction of including a Treaty with this Country as much to your honor as those to which you have already given your signature. I hope from the friendship which your Excellency has so often declared to me that you will have the goodness to make me the instrument of notifying the Intentions of Congress to this Country. The Silence of that Body afflicts and surprises me. I do not know what to think of this Silence which distresses me to the last degree. Patience you have been my example and I love and respect you too much not to follow it. I drew upon you the ninth of last month in favor of Messrs. Drouilhet for 4000 Livres Tournois, I wished not to be too pressing and altho I wrote your Excellency that I should draw in favor of Mr. Williams for 2000 Livres Tournois I shall not do it until next week. I beg and entreat your Excellency to charge my namesake to have the goodness to write me from time to time. Situated as I am and as I have been here I cannot remain longer spending money for others and my own Time more pretious still without having it in my power to serve others or myself essentially. On my return to America I may possibly be of use to my friends and to myself and certainly I have had no motive to induce me to remain here because, I have not consulted my own Interest—but those of the States. I always regarded them as inseparable, but I am afraid I shall sooner or later experience that Ostracism has not existed only in Athens. I should not complain of this, If I had only a shirt of your garment to give me some claim to merit, but as this gift cannot be bestowed without your ascension to another World I will consent to suffer every thing in this provided Your Excellency will also determine not to leave us, even Tho Madame Helvetius should invite you to Elysium to revenge herself of the indifference of her Caro Esposo and you of the Inconstancy of your Gaia, until you shall see us hors d’Affaire with all the potentates of Europe. I cannot tell your Excellency How we shall be here, but this week I shall have an opportunity of writing you more fully by a private hand. With affectionate remembrance to my Namesake I have the honor to be with the highest regard and Affection Your Excellency’s most obliged and Most Humble Servant