In addressing this letter to your excellency, I must warn you that I will not be permitted and consequently will not be able to send dispatches to 341 you by the usual route. Nevertheless, as I believe the commission as much as Congress itself ought to see the contents of the greater part of these dispatches, I will willingly continue if your excellency will be so good as to first suggest to me a safe house in London through which I could in the future pass to Paris those of my letters at least where I must speak with an open heart and without constraint about the affairs of the republic, that is to say, on future peace or war in Europe.

This nation is neither anxious nor dejected, as you appear in your last letter to believe.1 They are arming with one accord for the defense of the fatherland, and they are employed in earnest in forming a coalition more natural and more solid than that of the Northites and Foxites.

My respects, please, to their excellencies your colleagues as well as to Mrs. Adams from my family and from me, your excellency’s very humble and very obedient servant