To Jean-Jacques Caffieri (unpublished)
[June 25, 1785]
Sir

I receiv’d the two obliging Lettres you have lately written to me. Please to deliver one of the Busts to M. le Roy of the Academy of Sciences, and keep the other till call’d for by M. Carmichael, Chargé des Affaires des Etats Unis. at Madrid. Send me a Bill of the Expence, with a Receipt, and it shall be immediately paid.

Your Complaints of Injustice, of being supplanted, &c. seem to have been founded on a Mistake. You have not considered the 13 States of America as so many distinct Governments, each of which has a Right to employ what Artist it thinks proper, and is under no kind of Obligation to employ one who has been employ’d before, either by the Congress, or by particular States. The State of Virginia, therefore, in chusing another, tho’ perhaps they may not have made a better Choice, have certainly done you no Injustice. With great Esteem, I have the honour to be

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