This Letter will be delivered you, by your old Acquaintance, John Quincy Adams, whom I beg Leave to recommend to your Attention and favour. He is anxious to Study Sometime, at your University before he begins the Study of the Law which appears at present to be the Profession of his Choice.

He must undergo an Examination, in which I Suspect he will not appear exactly what he is. in Truth there are few who take their Degrees at Colledge, who have so much Knowledge, but his Studies having been pursued by himself, on his travells without any Steady Tutor, he will be found aukward in Speaking Latin, in Prosody, in Parsing, and even perhaps in that accuracy of Pronunciation in reading orations or Poems in that Language, which is often chiefly attended to in Such Examinations.1

It seems to be necessary therefore that I make this Apology for him to you, and request you to communicate it in confidence to the Gentlemen who are to examine him, and Such others as you think prudent. If you were to examine him in English and French Poetry, I know not where you would find any body his Superiour. in Roman and English History few Persons of his Age, it is rare to find a youth possessed of So much Knowledge. He has translated Virgils Æneid, Suetonious, the whole of Sallust, and Tacituss Agricola, his Germany and Several Books of his Annals, a great Part of Horace Some of Ovid and Some of Cæsars Commentaries in Writing, besides a number of Tullys orations.2 These he may Shew you; and altho you will find the Translations in many Places inaccurate in point of Style, as must be expected at his Age, you will See abundant Proof, that it is impossible to make those translations without Understanding his Authors and their Language very well.

In Greek his Progress has not been equal. Yet he has Studied Morcells in Aristotles Poeticks, in Plutarch’s Lives, and Lucians Dialogues, the Choice of Hercules in Xenophon, and lately he has gone through Several Books in Homers Iliad.

in Mathematicks I hope he will pass muster. in the Course of the last year, instead of playing Cards like the fashionable World I have Spent my Evenings with him. We went with some Accuracy through the Geometry in the Præceptor the Eight Books of Simpsons Euclid, in Latin and compared it Problem by Problem and Theorem by Theorem with Le Pere Dechalles in french, We went through plain Trigonometry and plain Sailing, Fennings Algebra, and the Decimal Fractions, arithmetical and Geometrical Proportions, and the Conic Sections in Wards Mathematicks. I then attempted a Sublime Flight and endeavoured to give him some Idea of the Differential Method of Calculation of the Marquis de L’Hospital, and the Method of Fluxions and infinite Series of Sir Isaac Newton3 But alass it is thirty years Since I thought of Mathematicks, and I found I had lost the little I once knew, especially of these higher Branches of Geometry, So that he is as yet but a smatterer like his Father. however he has a foundation laid which will enable him with a years Attendance on the Mathematical Professor, to make the necessary Proficiency for a Degree. He is Studious enough and emulous enough, and when he comes to mix with his new Friends and young Companions he will make his Way well enough. I hope he will be upon his Guard against those Airs of Superiority among the Schollars, which his larger Acquaintance with the World, and his manifest Superiority in the Knowledge of Some Things, may but too naturally inspire into a young Mind, and I beg of you Sir, to be his friendly Monitor, in this Respect and in all others.4

With great Esteem I have the Honour / to be, sir your most obedient and / most humble servant

The Letter you did me the honour to write me on the 11th. of February last, containing the Ratification of my last Loan, of two million Guilders, having been properly addressed to me as Minister at the Hague, by a mistake in the Post Office at Paris was Sent to Holland, from whence it returned to me last night.1

This Loan is long Since full, as my first Loan of Five million Guilders is nearly So; I must therefore Solicit the further Instructions of Congress, whether I am to open any new Loan or not.

Your Letter to Dr Franklin Mr Jefferson and me of the 14. of January has been duely received and answered.2

If I had known a few Weeks Sooner, that Congress had resolved to Send a Minister to London, it would have saved you the Trouble of a Letter upon the Subject which you will receive by the Packet.3 it has appeared to me, for sometime to be an important and a necessary measure: and although the Gentleman who may be sent there, whoever he may be, will probably find himself entangled in a Thicket of Briars, from which he will hardly get free without tearing his flesh; yet I am perswaded that the Appearance of an American Minister at the British Court, will have good Effects upon our Affairs even in France and Spain and the nations in Alliance with them, as well as in the Courts and Nations in the opposite Scale of the Ballance but especially upon the British and American Nations. 38Will it be foreign to the Purpose, upon this Occasion, or improper for me to observe that the People in America and their Legislatures in the Several States, Should prepare the Way for their Minister in England to require a faithfull Execution of Treaties, by Setting the Example of a punctual Execution on their Part. if We establish the Principle that We have a Right to depart from the Treaty in one Article, because they have departed from it in another, they will certainly avail themselves of the same Principle and probably extend it as much farther, as their Sense of Justice is less and their Opinion of their own Power, however illfounded is greater. it cannot I think be too often nor too earnestly recommended to our Countrymen to consider the Treaty as Sacred and to fullfill it in all its Parts according to its real Spirit and Intention in good Conscience. in that most delicate Point of all respecting the Refugees, I even wish that the People could conquer their natural Feelings and even Suppress their just Resentments. This I am confident is the best Revenge that can be taken, and will most effectually disarm even those among them who are most distinguished for their Enmity. if We have any Thing to fear from Canada and Nova Scotia, or for our Whale Fishery, it arises and will arise from our own Severity to these People. and the same observation may be applyed to the Furr Trade and the Posts upon the Frontier.

Your desire, Sir, to hear from me frequently and to have my poor opinion on the affairs of your Department does me great Honour, and shall be complied with to the Utmost of my Power: But I Shall have much oftener occasion for your Advice in Such affairs as are entrusted to me. I think myself extreamly happy in common with our Countrymen, that I have to correspond with a Gentleman to whom our foreign Affairs are very familiar by long Experience, who knows where our Difficulties and Dangers lie, and who has proved himself upon all Occasions Superiour to them.

I am sorry to learn, that the French Chargé des affaires has demanded Mr Longchamps to be delivered up. and am the more Surprized because I had understood, from such Sources as I thought authentick that the Punishment to which he has been Sentenced, was Satisfactory at Court.4 It may not however be amiss for the French Government to keep up a Claim, which may be a standing restraint to their own Subjects in all foreign Countries. But It cannot be doubted, that the French Ministry know our Right to refuse, as well as theirs to demand, as there is no positive Stipulation 39between the two Powers that Criminals shall be mutually given up, and Surely it is no perfect Right by the Law of Nations. nor is it a common Practice. so far from it, that it will be difficult to shew an Example of it, where there is no Convention.

Your Packet for Mr Charmichael shall be delivered to the Spanish Ambassador to go by his Courier, as you desire.5

With the Utmost respect and Esteem / I have the Honour to be, Sir / Your most obedient and / most humble servant