Our worthy friend Mr. Jefferson communicated to me some time ago your excellency’s progress with the Tuscan language, and your desire that I should write to you in the said language, whenever I had the freedom to accommodate your wishes, using a simple and clear style. Here I am, then, obeying your commands and, as usual, asking for favors.

Mr. Jefferson and I thought that the account of the Massachusetts uprising, compared with the similar events of the past eleven years in Great 179 Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire, could serve as proof in favor of our governments, as much with regard to the rarity of the event as to the causes, the conduct and the effects.

This account will be part of a supplement that I am writing for my work, which I cannot much delay in sending to press, since the sixth sheet of the fourth and last part is already printed. If your excellency would therefore provide me with, as promptly as possible, the exact details of the uprisings that occurred on that island, then I should be greatly obliged to you.2

I have been informed of the grave illness of my dear friend and your worthy son-in-law Colonel Smith. Please give him my regards, and let me know of the present state of his health. I also entreat you to present my humble and sincere respects to your ladies, wife and daughter, to honor me soon with your commands and to permit me to sign with an equal dose of affection and respect, your excellency’s most devoted and most humble servant