The affection with which you honored me during your time in Europe, and my steadfast sentiments of devotion for your excellency, move me to offer my expressions of joy at the pleasant news of the important post to which the freest people in the world have elected you, and your patriotic zeal led you to accept. May this zeal find its reward in the total success of your efforts for the public good, in the prosperity of your dear family, in the esteem and love of your fellow citizens, in the blessings of this life and of the one that awaits virtue in the other.

I hastened to publish your fine speech, as your excellency will see by the enclosed Gazette from our friend at Leiden.

I can say nothing, sir, about the political life of this place, not knowing anything about it, as your excellency may see in my letters to the department of foreign affairs, especially since last September.1 As for social life, though less perturbed by foreign agitation, it is no less a disgrace for all of those who cannot count themselves happy having not only to dissemble, but to pretend: for one must needs do one and the other. It is not the same, from what I gather, in the cities. But here, and even among intimates, we misapprehend each other, we hate, slander, betray each other, etc., etc., mercilessly. And the most virtuous are made to suffer the most. A few succumb to sorrow and die. Others, a little more lively, languish in sadness. I have taken the liberty in my dispatches to request that I be recognized as chargé d’affaires at the court of Brussels, and that I carry two letters from Congress, one for the said court, and the other, to hand them at the same time to be forwarded to the court in Vienna, which would amend the former omission to have given direct and formal notice of the independence and sovereignty of the American confederation. For that court, I could also compose a draft of a treaty of commerce and friendship, ultimately to be concluded by his excellency Mr. Jefferson with the imperial minister in Paris.2 Thus recognized once and for all, and without needing to continually reside in Brussels, I would be protected under the law of nations, and not be so disparaged in this country. For the same reason, it would be good for me to be able to officially remit similar letters of notice to the Danish, Swedish, Russian, Prussian, and Sardinian ministers at The Hague so that they can forward them to their respective courts. It would be of no inconvenience to address a letter to Mr. Fagel for Their High Mightinesses, giving them direct and immediate notice of the new federal Constitution of the United States. This would lend me a certain status and consideration in social interactions, which is being secretly undermined as much as possible. This saddens my family, and deprives me of all of the domestic comforts and consolation that I have the right to expect. His excellency Mr. Jay gives me hope that, as soon as Congress has finished with major duties, he will be pleased to attend to this one among the minor 24 affairs, and to do something that gives credence to the fact that, while disgraced by the system in place today in this country, I am not for all that, by my masters. And I entrust myself in this regard, as in all others, to the friendship and goodness of your excellency for myself, who am, with the most respectful devotion, your excellency’s most humble and most obedient servant

I have just received his excellency the President’s noble and touching address. He sends it to Leiden to have it included in the Gazette.3

I had the honor of writing a letter addressed to your excellency at Boston last August.4 I hope that it reached you, and that I will be graced by a memento from your excellency with news of your health and of Madam’s, to whom I present the token of my respects.