The man who will have the honor of delivering this letter to you, Monsieur and dear friend, is one of my colleagues, esteemed for his virtues of mind and heart. Because he is eager to get to know England a little, and in particular the people there from whom he would learn the most, he aspires above all to have the advantage of meeting you, and has expressed the greatest possible earnestness in this regard. I would be most obliged to you if you would receive him with that kindness that is natural to you, and that no one has experienced more than I; and if you would also be so good as to procure him a favorable admittance to Mr. Pringle, both he and I would be further indebted to you. His name is Macquart. Monsieur l’Abbé des Prades, grand Vicar of the diocese of Die and secretary of Monsieur le Comte d’Artois, had composed six lines of verse last year to go beneath your portrait, and engaged a person to deliver them to me who did not carry out the commission as he had promised. He spoke to me of it only recently. I asked him for a copy, which I enclose to obtain your opinion on it. For my part, I find the lines beautiful, but I am not sure that the words enchained, tyranny and hero are the most appropriate terms for their respective positions in the verse. Therefore, even if I had received the lines in time, I think that I still would have kept to my own four little lines, simple as they are.

So now the bill against the city of Boston has passed. It seems to me that Mylord North is a witty man, but not at all a sensible one, who does not foresee how much harm he will do his country through the erroneous course of action that he is leading it to adopt. Not only does England itself have as much to lose as its colonies from the interruption of that city’s trade, but if the Americans continue to be as united and as wise as they have been until now, they will soon put themselves in a position to withstand all the efforts of the mother country, and even if dissension is successfully sown among them, that will only result in postponing an event that Great Britain must regard as inevitable … unless Britain itself changes its plans, which does not seem to me at all likely. It appears that Heaven has determined to imbue that country with

I am writing to Dr. Lettsom via Monsieur Macquart, asking him to give you news of his cousin Monsieur Pickering who has been entrusted with a package for you.

On the topic of electricity, I have nothing new to tell you. But an idea comes to me at this moment regarding your flies, drowned in Madeira wine in America and resuscitated in London. Do you think that this experiment could also succeed with bees, and if so, how well? For that would be a very economical way to import them from afar.

Accept a thousand kind regards from my wife, Mademoiselle Biheron, and Messieurs Dalibard, de Beaumont, Du Pont, de Lor, etc. I have the honor to be, with a tender and inviolable attachment, my dear master, your very humble and very obedient servant