Two packet-boats, my dear friend, without hearing from you! A multitude of letters arrive from America, and none from you! I know well that you are entrusted with the most important management, and that this leaves you little time; I would not like to do any harm to your efforts for the happiness of your fellow citizens, but does your friends' happiness mean nothing to you any longer? Does it not depend largely upon their affections? And can my affection survive without tokens of your own? I feel, however, that I am wrong to address these complaints to you. That which I am so upset to have not received from you does not need to be asked for, and I would not be concerned at all about it, if you yourself did not need to give it to me.

You will receive, I think at the same time as this, a letter from me brought by M. de La Valete, nephew of the deceased Madame de la Fretté. He is traveling in America solely by curiosity, in order to see free men and how they conduct themselves in order to firmly ensure their country's happiness. You may keep him, he appears to be educated and well-mannered; I believe you will be pleased with him, and I promise not to venture recommendations.

M. de Jefferson has been in England for 10 days; I do not know if you have read his Observations on Virginia. He had them printed at his own cost, and he gave me a copy. L'Abbé Morellet is translating them, and they will soon appear. Overall they will do honor to their author, but they will cause chagrin to M. de Buffon, whose system they contradict, and the principles that they would establish on negroes will displease many people. Why must M. de Buffon have a system, and M. Jefferson [his] negroes?

I have not heard anything new in the sciences; it is true, I live quite isolated. M. L'Abbé Rochon and Garochais, who works with him in the King's Laboratory in La Muete, have found a way to perfectly weld copper plate without arsenic, and with this they have made telescope mirrors which appear to be all the more precious as nothing known can tarnish them. One was made for the King following this discovery.

Two memoirs have appeared which are causing a big sensation: the first by M. de La Cretelle, a lawyer of great merit, and well known in the literature against the new Indian company; and the second by M. Du Paty, a magistrate for the Bordeaux Parliament, for three men condemned to the gallows by a lower court, and on the rack by the Paris Parliament. They have not been executed, and according to M. Du Paty, these men are innocent, and the procedure, he says, appears to have been carried out against all the rules of justice. This leads him to justly satirize our criminal justice system, and to demand its reform. I read these two memoirs; the first is excellent, the second poorly carries out its purpose, and alienates the body which it must necessarily influence the most for the reform it proposes.

M. de Cagliostro, still held in the Bastille, has also produced his own memoir, worthy of being printed together with the Thousand and One Nights; he does not know his father or mother. But he would have it believed that he is the son of Emmanuel Pinto, the deceased Grand Master of Malta. He was raised in Medina by the Mufty and in Mecca by the Cherif, who cared for him with the greatest tenderness. He had a domestic staff, and a governor named Altotas, who accompanied him in his voyages until his death in Malta, where the Comte Cagliostro took his name, and where Emmanuel Pinto, Grand Master, received him with all kinds of ceremony and honors. M. Altotas shed his turban for the cross of Malta. Although M. the Comte has prodigiously traveled and studied, he makes several errors in geography: he puts close to Medina the city of Trebisonde, which no longer exists under that name, and where he was warned that he should stay away from above all else. He has seen almost everything, he knows the oriental languages; he instructs us that the Pyramids of Egypt, which he describes to be made of granite and which the masses admire because of their bulk and the efforts necessary to construct them, the Pyramids contain all the secrets of the ancient Egyptians. Furthermore, he offers to prove de visu [by visual testimony] that he is neither Jewish nor Turkish, and the ladies await his release from the Bastille with impatience.

All our friends embrace you: Madame d'Enville, M. de la Rochefoucauld, from whom you must have received two letters, MM. de Condorcet, L'Abbé Rochon, Dailly, Petit, Mademoiselle de Montmarquet, Madame de Chaumont, etc. etc. but especially my wife and my daughter, and I, I am yours for life