M. Paine has just given me your letter from last April 15; finally after 13 months you had a moment of kindness, you remembered me, your good heart [will have] told you that I must have been so saddened by your silence, that I loved you so tenderly, that you would bring me so much pleasure in writing to me, that you were carried away by the pleasure of making me happy. For you did not say about me as you did about M. Lafayette: if I never answer, he will no longer write to me! O my dear friend, I do not want to be a burden to you, but it is permitted to ask for what is necessary, and a few words from you, written at less desperate intervals— this is one of my most urgent needs.

I think that the enclosed book will give you pleasure, although it deals with a country quite far from you, and which has just experienced a great change. I am sending it on behalf of the author, M. de Volnei, whom you met at Madame Helvétius's, and the packet will be brought to you by M. Saugrain, a young, very learned scientist, especially in theoretical and practical physics. I have known him since his childhood; his father was a printer and his ancestors practiced this art almost since its invention. Don Galvès, the last viceroy of Mexico, had requested him from his father-in-law, M. de Maxent of Louisiana, with whom M. Saugrain was staying; the Viceroy sent him to Paris to learn about the latest discoveries in the sciences, and make related acquisitions. Just as he was about to leave for Mexico, he received the news of Don Galvès's death; he decided to visit your country with some plans of even staying there, and I ask you to welcome him graciously. As for M. de la Valete, nephew of Mme. de Lafreté, his poor health made him change his mind, you won't see him. He was known quite well by M. le Coulteux, one of your new citizens.

I challenge you, my dear friend, to keep your word to finish the history which you promised me, for the instruction of the human race, as well as for its happiness and a thousand other reasons. I am quite earnest about this, and if you think absolutely like myself, that the independence of your country will not be complete until your public debt is paid, you will not have your own liberty from me until you have acquitted your debt. I hope that you will work seriously on it as soon as the grand convention is finished. You could be its president and its results will doubtless add an excellent chapter to your memoir. I have great hopes for this assembly, which you have much need of. However, there is talk about abandoning to the congress the legislation of trade and customs; are you therefore going to have, or continue to have, customs? And restrictions? Simply because the foolish nations of Europe have them? I think that this is an unreasonable conclusion, and that, regardless of what the Europeans might do, you should leave trade absolutely free. What would happen? That you would increase the price of what you sell them by the amount of tax that they add, that you would make a great deal of profit in contraband, and you would leave the money—which customs would generate for you, and because of which foreign countries will sell to you for a correspondingly higher amount— in the hands of your citizens. This money would be productive there, and would give your citizens the means to pay a higher tax.

It would be troubling if some states neglected to send their deputies, as they already have, or refused to do so, like Rhode Island. In this case it would perhaps be wise, so that the thing doesn't become interminable, to still proceed to the amendment of the federal constitution, in which they would no longer be included, unless they consent to the new constitution, which they would likely do.

You give me the greatest pleasure in telling me about the harmony of your general assembly. I had presumed that you would bring consensus there, but some people from your country have strongly told me the contrary, that is what I presume they wanted: they claim that the party that wanted to change the constitution would carry it in the end, and that you yourself would be obliged to join their ranks.

I am quite sorry that you have not had the time to copy the article on the retaining of the forts by the English; the Duc de la Rochefoucauld will also be upset to not have it, we suffer impatiently from not enjoying everything which comes from you, and we request it for the future when you will have the leisure for it.

I am very happy that the stone and the gout are behaving so well for you; I hope they do not go back on their word. However, I would like to see you in other society; if it isn't the worst company, it is not the best, either.

To my mind, dangerous, even wrongful, paper money, can only be the one that one is required by law to take instead of money. Any other paper, which is freely accepted, can be useful; its quantity is self-regulated, and it only hurts those who make poor speculations.

You have doubtless acted wisely in building three new houses; I would very much like to inhabit one of them. M. Paine told me that money invested in arable land around large cities only produced two and a half or three percent, compared to ten percent in construction, although the salary of the workers is excessive. A new book by MM. de Clavière and Brisseau de Warville about France and the United States says that money can be easily invested at 6 percent in farmers, for whom the cultivation of the land can make it generate a great deal more. Are all these assertions true, and how are they reconciled?

I told M. de Barbançon what you wrote me regarding the seeds which he asked you for; I do not yet have his response, but he has doubtless no better option than to wait for them.

My last letter to M. your grandson contained news that he no doubt communicated to you; since then, the archbishop of Toulouse was made Minister and President of the Council of Finance. M. de Fourqueux already resigned from the position of Controller General, and M. de Villedeuil, who had just been named to the administration of Rouen when we passed through, is replacing him. The new archbishop minister has much wider powers than those of the late M. de Vergennes, whose memory is much tarnished by the incredible robberies committed under his nose during his presidency, and the immense fortune which he left.

The assembly of notables adjourned on May 25; you will see the speeches in the Gazette, and I believe that, with the exception of that of the prevôt des marchands, you will be satisfied with them. There is general satisfaction with the notables; the minutes of this assembly, compared to the one held under Louis XIII, will mark, in a manner quite striking and glorious for this century, the progress of the human spirit in every domain.

The departments of the masters of requests have been eliminated. Four intendants of finance and one intendant of commerce have been named to do the work which they had been entrusted with. Out of the two councils, finance and commerce, a single council has been made. M. de Nivernois has joined the council and M. de Malesherbes has returned to it.

Many edicts have been brought to Parliament, for the establishment of provincial assemblies, for absolute freedom of the grain trade, for the abolition of unpaid public labor, etc. The provincial assemblies cause the greatest joy; they are seen, and with reason I think, as an enormous step towards freedom. This is a small consolation for the new taxes that we will be made to bear, among which, as we are not as fed up as you, will be a stamp tax.

What an excellent daughter you have! How she resembles my wife, indeed—I congratulate you! Please present her with my respect, and inform her that there is a man in France who does her all the justice that she merits, through an exact image of herself.

This excellent wife, her daughter, and all of our mutual friends love you and think about you just as when you were here; everyone embraces you as they did then. My son is still in Bordeaux, but he will return without yet having a future. I am dining tomorrow with M. Paine, at M. de Chaumont's; I will do all in my power to be useful and agreeable to someone whom you love and whose name fits exactly the blank in your recommendation. Unfortunately the Duc de la Rochefoucauld and all his family have left for three months; M. Paine is only to stay here two months, to then go to England and come back to spend the winter in Paris; M. Jefferson returned the day before yesterday from a long voyage to Italy and our southern provinces.

You know that M. Brillon is dead, his house is sold; at present that entire family is far from me. M. Dailly has a disturbing languishing illness, Mme. Bandeville is near her end; I daily endure losses that nothing will be able to repair, but I have felt none so acutely as the loss that I suffered because of the ship which took you to America. Adieu my dear friend, I am entirely yours for eternity