I have just now gathered from one of our Dutch gazettes that your excellency is presently at The Hague, and I hasten to relay anew all of the respect and veneration which I have always had and have invariably manifested for you and your virtues. The trust and friendship with which you have always been willing to honor me throughout the term of your residence in this country inspire hope that you will not scorn the reverence of one of your most enthusiastic and most sincere admirers and partisans.

Doubtless your excellency knows that I am currently editor, or, to be more precise, collaborator, of the Gazette de Leyde. Mr. Dumas, to whom I owe the position I have occupied for about fifteen months, will surely have relayed this news to you in due time.1

As for public news of this country, it is impossible that you would not take in it a most concerted interest, since the ferment that generally reigns for the reestablishment of a truly free republican constitution is a consequence of the principles that the American Revolution has happily spread.2 At the same time I shall have you know that the work I passed on to you on the means of reestablishing the republic, which was published in Dutch nearly two years ago, contributed in no small part to this ferment that is so salutary and so apt to shake the Belgian nation out of the stupor in which she has remained numb for so long. I would be most flattered to have a private word with your excellency on the state of our current affairs, as it is in large part to the lights which I have gathered from your conversation and from the foundations of new republics, the formation of which you had so great a part in, that I owe the success of the Grondwettige Herstelling in this country: such is the title of the work in question.3

Though I have been beset by infirmities for nearly two months, and one of my eyes remains shut following a case of erysipelas4 that put one of my feet in the grave, I will not fail to make the trip to The Hague to present to you my respects and to demonstrate with what feelings of respect I have the honor to be, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant

Friday being the most favorable day for me, I hope that your excellency will be so kind as to have a reply sent by this evening or by tomorrow morning.5