Your letter of August 10th penetrated my soul with the most delicious feeling, as it showed me how my letter of July 28th had moved you. It is a new incentive for me to carry out my plan of a little trip to London; my important affair, however, has not yet been concluded. Perhaps it will be concluded within eight days; perhaps it will last for another six weeks, but its resolution is now certain, and as soon as I am freed of it, I will have packed my bags to leave and join you. Monsieur Magellan has not only made me hope that I would still find you in England, but he has also made me glimpse the possibility that you could make a trip to Paris this winter. God grant us the satisfaction of having you here once more! In fact, I do not doubt that you have carefully weighed all the circumstances of your present situation; it is not within my power to take everything into account from here, but from what I can judge at a glance, here is my opinion. Your departure for America at this moment of crisis would greatly offend the British government, and who knows what they may not be capable of attempting? Your continued stay in London is perhaps almost equally disagreeable to them, and could furthermore expose you to the bad humor of an unruly populace, which often becomes carried away and rarely knows why. If the common people in France are known as destroyers of reason [“brise-raison”], in England they could be called destroyers of everything [“brise-tout”]. With our people, there is nothing to fear; with regard to yours, there is nothing to laugh about. Come then, dear friend; wait out the storm; “You have done enough for your country and Priam” [Sat Patriae, Priamoque datum].

France has never been so tranquil, nor have its hopes of a happy future ever seemed better founded. Our new comptroller-general, Monsieur Turgot, has obtained the trust of the king and the public through his virtues and his enlightened ideas. An edict of the council, cast in a mold utterly different from that of preceding edicts, granted us (yesterday) complete freedom of the grain trade within the country’s borders, and announced that full and unrestricted freedom of this trade, even outside the country’s borders, was imminent. Freedom of the press is almost entirely reestablished; the only exception has to do with matters of religion, on which we must be silent, and let superstition die out of its own accord.

Today I intend to take to the board of censors a short prospectus for a series of essays, which would appear at intervals for an undetermined length of time, without a formal contract, under the title of The Correspondent of Philadelphia. It will not be difficult for you to guess from the title alone that you yourself first provided me with the material for this enterprise, and you are the principal resource that will enable me to complete it. If you were here to set it up and animate it, I would be far more assured of its success. I have announced that it will contain a great variety and an abundance of political and literary news items from America—particularly from Philadelphia—which I plan to compare to Paris, but I fear you may find the comparison a little weak.

I have been having Monsieur Stanley badgered in vain up to now, not only by Monsieur Le Roi but also by one of his female cousins, who flatters herself that she can get the better of him.

My wife and her lady friends are no less impatient to embrace you than I am, Monsieur and dear friend. Be assured that no one could be a more perfectly faithful and affectionate servant of yours,