Your excellency will see by the copies enclosed herein that it was only a matter of rendering a service to the gentlemen of Amsterdam, for which 190they were requesting me insistently and which I did not believe and ought not believe I was capable of honestly avoiding even if you had not entrusted the care of your books to me, of which they were not aware when they wrote me the first of these letters.1

I have just received your honored letter of the 13th of this month and will have the honor to respond upon the next regular post. Time does not permit me to add more to the present letter than the affirmation of the respect with which I am, with my family, your excellency’s most humble and most obedient servant