I send you inclosed the Copies you desired of the Papers I read to you yesterday. I should be happy if I could see before I die, the proposed Improvement of the Law of Nations established. The Miseries of Mankind would be diminished by it; and the Happiness of Millions secured and promoted. If the Practice of Privateering could be profitable to any civilized Nation, it might be so to us Americans, since we are so situated upon the Globe as that the rich Commerce of Europe with the West Indies, consisting of Manufactures, Sugars &c is obliged to pass before our Doors; which enables us to make short and cheap Cruizes, while our Commerce is in such bulky low-prized Articles as that ten of our Ships taken by you is not equal in Value to one of yours; and you must come far from home at a great expence to look for them. I hope therefore that this Proposition, if made by us, will appear in its true Light, as having Humanity only for its Motive. I do not wish to see a New Barbary rising in America, and our long extended Coast occupied by Piratical States. I fear lest our Privateering Success in the two last Wars should already have given our People too strong a relish for that most mischievous Kind of Gaming mixed with Blood And that if a stop is not now put to the Practice, Mankind may be more plagued with American Corsairs than they have been and are with the Turkish. Try, my Friend, what you can do, in procuring for your Nation the Glory of being, though the greatest Naval Power, the first who voluntarily relinquished the advantage that Power seems to give them, of plundering others, and thereby impeding the mutual Communication among Men of the Gifts of God, and rendering miserable Multitudes of Merchants and their Families, Artizans and Cultivators of the Earth, the most useful, peaceable and innocent Part of the human Species. With great Esteem and Affection, I am ever my Dear Friend Yours most sincerely