A Frenchman who plans to become an American prays you to accept the tribute of his feeble ouput. The works enclosed herein, of which he is the author, will interest you, not for the way in which they are treated, but for their subjects.1 It is a sense of humanity that guided their choice.

The first is the plan of an establishment, which the National Convention is on the verge of decreeing. The second is a brief which had been condemned never to see the light of day, and which the forces of circumstance desired I publish. The convention itself demanded the manifestation of all opinions: this brief was sent to it. The third is a work on the liberation of France, adopting the evaluation which the constitutional assembly had made of its debt. The fourth, finally, is considerations on North America, which I 195 am not familiar with, but that seems to be common with almost all those who have written on the subject in my language, or who have been translated. I differ on one point, which is that I make my ignorance known to the public.

One particular fact may surprise you about the author of these different works. I am, along with the late Mr. Adhenet, to whom you granted your friendship and an intimate friend of mine, the translator of your Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, and of the petition in which the United States requested of the cabinet of Versailles an alliance with France against England. I do not know English. Adhenet made a rough go of it, tendered me his work, and by dictating it to him, I rearranged it. I still have the two drafts in my possession. The translations requested of him by Mr. Genet, father of our envoy to the United States, were carried out in the same way. But I must say that as for Adhenet, it was for want of trust in his own abilities: he could have done without such assistance. For the while, as I had the good fortune to have lent a hand in these two translations, I would deem myself happy if, satisfied with your translators, you would willingly grant me some interest when, having arrived in your country, I will have deserved it to be mine.

I am respectfully, sir