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Following your request which Thad the honor to receive with your dispatch dated on the sixth of this month, and following the remarks addressed to you by the Count of Vergennes, with which you were so kind to acquaint me, I gathered the most exact information with regard to the unlading of foreign ships presently in this port. I found that the schooner Charming Polly of 70 freight tons, from Philadelphia, under the command of Mr. Thomas Paton, and belonging to Thomas Masson who is on board and who had come here last year in command of a small ship laden with tea from New England, had come to this port in behalf of the congress in order to buy gunpowder, rifles and saltpetre. Having found neither rifles nor gunpowder, she was to sail with the first strong winds laden with one hundred and some barrels of saltpetre. I prohibited the expedition of the latter pretending that I did not know whether the government would not retain it for its own use. I warned Mr. Bérard with whom Masson had been dealing that he was not to allow this merchandise to go abroad without finding out first whether the department of ordnance [regie des poudres] had any use for it.

There is also here a brigantine of one hundred freight tons, named Dune, under the command of Captain Craig, also from Philadelphia, and which was sent here with the same intentions. I know that the Captain went to Nantes by land in an attempt to buy war ammunition which he could not find. Since he grounded his ship on the sandbank of K.nevelle [?] in order to clean her, he said, I shall watch over the nature of the goods she will take on. In any case, I shall take all necessary measures to prevent ships coming from the English Colonies and returning there from taking on war ammunition.

I learned that the transaction which was attempted here did take place in Bordeaux and that the Congress has empowered Mr. Masson to offer flour, tar, pitch, tobacco and generally all kinds of goods from the English Colonies to Mr. Bérard in exchange for gunpowder, rifles and saltpetre; they are not interested in guns, cannon-balls or bullets. Furthermore, I see no difficulty in preventing the export of saltpetre, except to Holland with proper permits. We need not make public the reasons for this precaution; it is very easy, and as it happened. here, in spite of the deal and speculations made by Mr. Bérard, all the saltpetre remained in his possession.