Mr. Carmichael. Perhaps a joint letter should be written to Fennish; if you think so, be so good as to write and sign one and send it with the ratification, and I will sign and forward it. The other ratification is to go to Congress. Colonel Franks wishes to proceed with the papers to that body. He should do it, I think, immediately, as Mr. Jay, in a letter to me of October 26th, says that Congress have heard through the French Chargé des Affaires, that the treaty was signed, and they wonder they have not heard it from us.
I enclose you a copy of a letter from Mr. Lambe, by which you will perceive he does not propose to quit Alicant. I will forward the resolution of Congress to Mr. Carmichael, which was enclosed in yours of November 30th, to see if that will move him. As the turn of this resolution admits a construction that Congress may think our original appointment of him censurable, I have, as in justice I ought, in a letter to Mr. Jay, taken on myself the blame of having proposed him to you, if any blame were due. I have enclosed him a copy of my letter to you of September 24, 1785. Mr. Barclay has proposed to go to Alicant to settle Lambe's accounts, and asked to be strengthened with our authority. If Lambe will obey the resolve of Congress, it will be better to let him go and settle his account there. But if he will not go back, perhaps it might not be amiss for Mr. Barclay to have instructions from us to require a settlement, those instructions to be used in that case only. If you think so, be so good as to write a joint letter and send it to me. But this, if done at all, should be done immediately. How much money has Lambe drawn? I have suggested to Mr. Jay the expediency of putting the Barbary business into Carmichael's hands, or sending somebody from America, in consideration of our separate residence and our distance from the scene of negotiation.
I had seen, without alarm, accounts of the disturbances in the East. But Mr. Jay's letter on the subject had really affected me. However, yours sets me to rights. I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play. I but just begin to use my pen a little with my right hand, but with pain. Recommending myself, therefore, to the friendship of Mrs. Adams, I must conclude here with assurances of the sincere esteem of, dear Sir, your friend and servant.
P. S. Should a Mr. Maury, of Virginia, but now a merchant of Liverpool, present himself to you, I recommend him to your notice, as my old school-fellow, and a man of the most solid integrity.
TO MR. HOPKINSON
Dear Sir,—My last letter to you was dated August 14th. Yours of May 27th and June 28th, were not then received, but have been since. I take the liberty of putting under your cover another letter to Mrs. Champis, as also an inquiry after a Dr. Griffiths. A letter to M. le Vieillard, from the person he had consulted about the essence L'Orient, will convey to you the result of my researches into that article. Your spring-block for assisting a vessel in sailing cannot be tried here, because the Seine, being not more than about forty toises wide, and running swiftly, there is no such thing on it as a vessel with sails. I thank you for the volume of the Philadelphia transactions, which came safely to hand, and is, in my opinion, a very valuable volume, and contains many precious papers. The paccan-nut is, as you conjecture, the Illinois nut. The former is the vulgar name south of the Potomac, as also with the Indians and Spaniards, and enters also into the Botanical name which is Juglano Paccan. I have many volumes of the Encyclopedie for yourself and Dr. Franklin; but, as a winter passage is bad for books, and before the spring the packets will begin to sail from Havre to New York, I shall detain them till then. You must not presume too strongly that your comb-footed bird is known to M. de Buffon. He did not know our panther. I gave him the stripped skin of one I bought in Philadelphia, and it presents him a new species, which will appear in his next volumes. I have convinced him that our deer is not a Chevreuil, and would you believe that many letters to different acquaintances in Virginia, where this animal is so common, have never enabled me to present him with a large pair of their horns, a blue and red skin stuffed, to show him their colors, at different seasons. He has never seen the horns of what we call the elk. This would decide whether it be an elk or a deer. I am very much pleased with your project on the Harmonica, and the prospect of your succeeding in the application of keys to it. It will be the greatest present which has been made to the musical world this century, not excepting the Piano-forte. If its tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly only as the harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very valuable. I have lately examined a foot-bass newly invented here, by the celebrated Krumfoltz. It is precisely a piano-forte, about ten feet long, eighteen inches broad, and nine inches deep. It is of one octave only, from fa to fa. The part where the keys are, projects at the side in order to lengthen the levers of the keys. It is placed on the floor, and the harpsichord or other piano-forte is set over it, the foot acting in concert on that, while the fingers play on this. There are three unison chords to every note, of strong brass wire, and the lowest have wire wrapped on them as the lowest in the piano-forte. The chords give a fine, clear, deep tone, almost like the pipe of an organ. Have they connected you with our mint? My friend Monroe promised me he would take care for you in that, or perhaps the establishment of that at New York may have been incompatible with your residence in Philadelphia. A person here has invented a method of coining the French ecu of six livres, so as to strike both faces and the edge at one stroke, and makes a coin as beautiful as a medal. No country has ever yet produced such a coin. They are made cheaper too. As yet, he has only made a few to show the perfection of his manner. I am endeavoring to procure one to send to Congress as a model for their coinage. They will consider whether, on establishing a new mint, it will be worth while to buy his machines, if he will furnish them. A dislocation of my right wrist, which happened to me about a month after the date of my last letter to you, has disabled me from writing three months. I do it now in pain, and only in cases of necessity, or of strong inclination, having as yet no other use of my hand. I put under your cover a letter from my daughter to her friend. She joins me in respects to your good mother, to Mrs. Hopkinson and yourself, to whom I proffer assurances of the esteem with which I am, dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY DR. FRANKLIN
Dear Sir,—I have received your favor of October 8, but the volume of transactions mentioned to come with it, did not; but I had received one from Mr. Hopkinson. You also mention the diplomas it covered for other persons, and some order of the society relative to myself, which I supposed were omitted by accident, and will come by some other conveyance. So far as relates to myself, whatever the order was, I beg leave to express to you my sense of their favor, and wish to merit it. I have several livraisons of the Encyclopædie for yourself and Mr. Hopkinson, which shall be sent in the spring, when they will be less liable to injury. Some books also which I received from Baron Blome must await that conveyance. I receive some discouraging accounts of the temper of the people in our new government, yet were I to judge only from the accounts given in the public papers, I should not fear their passing over without injury. I wish you may have given your opinion of them to some of your friends here, as your experience and knowledge of men would give us more confidence in your opinion. Russia and the Porte have patched up an accommodation through the mediation of this court. The coolness between Spain and Naples will remain, and will occasion the former to cease intermeddling with the affairs of the latter. The Dutch affairs are still to be settled. The new King of Prussia is more earnest in supporting the cause of the slaveholder than his uncle was, and in general an affectation begins to show itself of differing from his uncle. There is some fear of his throwing himself into the Austrian scale in the European division of power. Our treaty with Morocco is favorably concluded through the influence of Spain. That with Algiers affords no expectation. We have been rendered anxious here about your health, by hearing you have had a severe attack of your gout. Remarkable deaths are the Dutchess of Chabot, of the House of Rochefoucault, Beaujon, and Peyronet, the architect who built the bridge of Neuilly, and was to have begun one the next spring from the place Louis XV. to the Palais Bourbon. A dislocated wrist not yet re-established, obliges me to conclude here with assurances of the perfect esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be, your Excellency's most obedient, and most humble servant.
P. S. Will you permit my respects to your grandson, Mr. Franklin, to find their place here?
