I don't know, sir, if you have any body with you, whom you may trust for translating the French letters, which treat on important affairs. On my part I shall not be able to treat with security in English, till after the return of a person whom I expect at this moment from London, and who will be an interpreter between us, meanwhile I have the honor to inform you, that I had for some time past, the desire of helping the brave Americans to shake off the English yoke. I have already tried several means to open secret and sure correspondence between the general Congress and a house which I am about to establish on that occasion; I shall exert my endeavors to provide the continent either by way of our West Indies or straight from here if possible, all such articles which the Americans shall be in need of, and which they can not any more get from England. I have already mentioned my plan to a gentleman in London who pretends to be much attached to America,² but our correspondence, since I left England having been carried on with difficulty and in ciphers, I have received no answer to my last, in which I tried to fix some terms for that great and important affair.

But since you are vested with a character which permits me to have confidence in you, I shall be very glad to begin anew, in a manner more certain and more regular, a negotiation which was before but touched on. My means are not very considerable, but they may be much increased if we can establish together, a treaty of which the conditions shall be honorable and advantageous and the execution of the same shall be exact.

I can not grant either to Mr. Dubourg or to anybody else, the confidence of speaking freely of my plan; but when you have compared the nature of the offers which shall be made to you from every quarter, to the disinterwhatested difference there is between treating with common merchants and on zeal which attaches me to the cause of America, you will perceive the hardest terms, and the good fortune of meeting with a generous friend who shall think himself happy in proving to your nation, and to you, its secret representative, how truly he is devoted to them. I am sir, Your &c. &c.