will be found in the strictest friendship. The considerations which lead to it are too numerous and forcible to fail of their effect: & that they may be permitted to have their full effect, no one wishes more sincerely than he who has the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem & respect Sir your most obed & most humble serv!

TO JAMES MADISON.

J. MSS.

PHILADELPHIA. June 1. 1792.

MY DEAR SIR,-I sent you last week some of Fenno's papers in which you will have seen it asserted impudently & boldly that the suggestions against Members of Congress were mere falsehoods. I now inclose his Wednesdays paper. I send you also a copy of Hamilton's notes. Finding that the letter would not be ready to be delivered before the Pr's return, I made notes corresponding with his, shewing where I agreed, where I did not, & I put his & mine into the Pr's hand's to be perused at his leisure. The result was that he approved of the letter remaining as it was particularly on the article of Debts, which he thought a subject of justification & not merely of extenuation. He never received my letter of the 23d till yesterday. He mentioned it to me in a moment when nothing more could be said than that he would take an occasion of conversing with me on the subject.

I have letters from France concerning the appointment there in the severest terms.

TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

J. MSS.

PHILADELPHIA, June 3, 1792.

DEAR SIR,-* The prices of our funds have undergone some variations within the last three months. The six percents were pushed by gambling adventurers up to 26/ or 27/ the pound. A bankruptcy having taken place among them, & considerably affected the more respectable part of the paper holders, a greater quantity of paper was thrown suddenly on the market than there was demand or money to take up. The prices fell to 19/. This crisis is past & they are getting up towards their true value, being at 23/. Tho' the price of public paper is considered as the barometer of the public credit, it is truly so only as to the general average of prices. The real credit of the U.S depends on the ability, & the immutability of their will, to pay their debts. These were as evident when their paper fell to 19/. as when it was at 23/. The momentary variation was, like that in the price of corn, or any other commodity, the result of a momentary disproportion between the demand & supply.

The unsuccessful issue of our expeditions against the Indians the last year, are not unknown to you. More adequate preparations are making for the present year, in the mean time, some of the hostile tribes have accepted peace & others have expressed a readiness to do the same.

Another plentiful year has been added to those which had preceeded it; & the present bids fair to be equally so, a prosperity built on the basis of Agriculture is that which is the most desirable to us, because to the effects of labour, it adds the effects of a greater proportion of soil. The checks however which the commercial regulations of Europe have given to the sale of our produce, has produced a very considerable degree of domestic manufacture, which, so far as it is in the household way, will doubtless continue and so far as it is more public, will depend on the continuance or discontinuance of this policy of Europe.

TO JAMES MADISON.

J. MSS.

PHILADELPHIA June 4. 1792.

DEAR SIR,—I wrote you on the 1st inst. which I will call No. 1. and number my letters in future that you may know when any are missing. Mr. Hammond has given me an answer in writing, saying he must send my letter to his court & wait their instructions. On this I desired a personal interview that we might consider the matter together in a familiar way. He came accordingly yesterday and took a solo dinner with me, during which our conversation was full, unreserved & of a nature to inspire mutual confidence. The result was that he acknoleged explicitly that his court had hitherto heard one side of the question only, & that from prejudiced persons, that it was now for the first time discussed, that it was placed on entirely new ground, his court having no idea of a charge of first infraction on them, and a justification on that ground of what had been done by our states, that this made it quite a new case to which no instructions he had could apply. He found from my expressions that I had entertained an idea of his being able to give an order to the governor of Canada to deliver up the posts, and smiled at the idea; & it was evident from his conversation that it had not at all entered into the expectations of his court that they were to deliver us the posts. He did not say so expressly, but he said that they considered the retaining of the posts as a very imperfect compensation for the losses their subjects had sustained; under the cover of the clause of the treaty which admits them to the naviga

tion of the Missisipi and the evident mistake of the negotiators in supposing that a line due West from the lake of the Woods would strike the Missisipi, he supposed an explanatory convention necessary, & shewed a desire that such a slice of our Northwestern territory might be cut off for them as would admit them to the navigation profit of the Missisipi; &c. &c. He expects he can have his final instructions by the meeting of Congress.-I have not yet had the conversation mentioned in my last. Do you remember that you were to leave me a list of names? Pray send them to me. My only view is that, if the P. asks me for a list of particulars, I may enumerate names to him, without naming my authority, and shew him that I had not been speaking merely at random. If we do not have our conversation before I can make a comparative table of the debts and numbers of all modern nations, I will shew him how high we stand indebted by the poll in that table.-I omitted Hammond's admission that the debt from the Potowmac North might be considered as liquidated, that that of Virginia was now the only great object, & cause of anxiety, amounting to two millions sterling.-Adieu. Yours affectionately.

TO THE GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA.

(WILLIAM BLOUNT.)

J. MSS.

PHILADELPHIA, June 6. 1792.

SIR, I have the honor to acknolege the receipt of Mr. Smith's letter of Dec. 9. written during your absence, as also yours of Dec. 26. & Apr. 23. With respect to the question on the divid

ing line between your government and the State of Kentucky, as that state is now coming into the Union as an independent member, we have delayed taking any measures for settling the boundary till they can be taken in concert with Kentucky.

With respect to the grants of land made by the state of N. Carolina since her deed of cession, south of the French Broad river, I have written to the Governor of that state to ask an explanation whether it has been by error or under any claim of right on their part? As soon as I receive his answer, proper proceedings at law shall be directed against the individual grantees to confirm or vacate their grants according to law. In the mean time I am to desire you to prevent any new settlements being made on those lands in the mildest way which the law authorises and which may be effectual. By new settlements I mean all made since the day of the meeting of the last session of Congress; because the intrusion of those made before that day was stated to Congress, and may be considered as under their consideration. I should think however, even as to those previous settlers, it would be proper for you to require every man to give in his name and a description of the spot of his settlement to prevent new settlers from confounding themselves with them.

TO JAMES MADISON.

J. MSS.

PHILADELPHIA June 10. 1792.

DEAR SIR,-The poll of the N. Y. election stood the day before yesterday.