I received the letter with which you honored me, which was dated the 12th of October, with a postscript of the 16th.

I am at least halfway through my translation of your quarto, and I hope to finish it towards the end of the year, or in the early part of the next. Where there is love there is no labor, St. Augustine used to say.

You could not possibly doubt the pleasure with which I would receive, the impatience even with which I await the supplement that you announce to me: your new experiments with the lightning rods, and your instructions directing those who conduct experiments with the reel of Surinam, with the torpedo fish, etc. You are also well aware that I would not be unhappy to receive a copy of my Little Code, published under your happy and glorious auspices, but I would very much like to try to avoid the enormous costs of the postal service. For your last letter I was taxed a hundred sous; what would be the tax on a packet that was slightly heavy? If no favorable opportunity presents itself (for there are few of that kind), you could, if there are stage coaches in England as there are in France, send me all the slightly bulky packets by that route (only a little slower, but much less expensive). However, do not send two copies at a time of the same work, whatever it may be, because inspections at customs, as well as at the office of the Librairie de Paris, would involve hassles and distressing vexations.

In the meantime, I beg you to send me a copy of the Little Code, enclosed in a first envelope addressed to me, this envelope simply closed up with a little Spanish wax (without a formal seal), and then enclosed in a second envelope (similarly closed up with a little wax and without a seal), labelled For the Gazette de France, and finally enclosed in a third envelope formally sealed and addressed to Monseigneur, Monseigneur the Chancellor of France at Versailles.

I hope not only that this copy will be able to reach me by this means, post-paid, but also that if you should happen to have some public papers from America that had become useless to you, or some other printed papers of no value, on politics, commerce, the arts, etc., etc., not too out of date, particularly from America, but also from England if the other ones should be lacking, and if you would be so kind as to slide one of these papers from time to time into the same envelopes, for the author of the Gazette de France, you could send me by this means, at the same time, as many small packets as pleased you: each packet for me, from four to five pages at most, in the first inner envelope; then some sheet, half-sheet (or complete two-page leaf in certain cases) in the second envelope for the Gazette; and the whole thing always enclosed in a third outer envelope addressed to Monsieur the Chancellor. And this could be repeated once or twice a week, if necessary. I also beg you to be so kind as to send a copy in an envelope to Madame the Duchess of Fitzjanes, this first envelope closed up with wax and no seal, and enclosed in a second envelope addressed to Monseigneur, Monseigneur the Duke of Aiguillon, Peer of France, Minister of State, at Versailles.

Finally I also beg you to send initially only the first page of a copy of the same Code to her most serene Highness Madame the Duchess of Chartres, at the Royal Palace in Paris. And please keep the rest of this copy until you hear from me again on the subject.

Madame the Duchess of Fitzjames [has promised me?] to bring back some live torpedo fish for me from [torn], where she is at present, but I very much fear [that they will arrive?] dead.

Here is how I have translated, and the silk by which the silk-worm, in its tender embrio state is first cloathed: “and the silk which has been given to a delicate insect, so that it may pass through its critical state.” I deliberately preferred the word “insect” (insecte) to the word “worm” (ver), for the reason that a worm, properly speaking, has no distinct body parts and is not subject to any of the various stages of metamorphosis, and thus it is improperly that the caterpillar which spins silk has been named the “silkworm” (ver à soye). As I write this, I change my mind; it seems to me that it would be better to say “a delicate caterpillar” (une chenille delicate).

With this letter I am sending you my magic square of the 11,000 virgins, because you are curious to see it. At the same time I take the liberty of pointing out to you that your “bent” diagonals should not exempt you from complete diagonals that are simpler and more easily within everyone’s comprehension. I have verified your large magic square of sixteen in its entirety, and I found only the same two faults that chance had made me encounter before at first glance, by a singularity that still astonishes me.

I will add in a footnote below your text, in the letter about the strata of the earth, what you [relate?] about your descent into the mines of fossil coal at Whit[ehaven. Remainder missing.]