[Extract]
. . . A letter of the 6th March written to Havre from Cape Francois informs me that l'Amphitrite and la Seine, my two first vessels, have arrived without accident at Charlestown in South Carolina, 2 I hasten to send you this news, begging you to rejoice at it for my sake, if the American cause h as become so foreign to France that you will no longer rejoice for its sake. I am no longer anxious for my other vessels; these two alone carried extensive munitions.
La Therese, formerly called le Comte de Vergennes a richly laden vessel, at last set sail on the 26th April, with the best wind, from Mindin, a roadstead at the mouth of the Loire. But, through a succession of adverse circumstances which I incessantly experience, an enormous packet which that vessel was to carry has been delayed two posts at the Paris Post Office, in spite ofmy precautions and recommendations. I doubt not from this delay, that everything has been opened and copied. It would be no great evil, because I assure you that the Ministry is in no way compromised in them; but what is a great evil, is that such indiscretion exists in France, and that an important packet should be shamelessly delayed from Monday to Friday, and a vessel obliged to start without its letters, after having waited for them four days, and ten times very nearly seen the wind, which was to bear it away, change. See what this leads to. Those who will receive this vessel are ignorant of what is to be done with the cargo, and the vessel which bears the papers of this first one may be delayed three months, or perish; and the stupid curiosity of the Post Office gentlemen has put in danger valuable goods to the extent of more than a million. If to obviate this abuse whenever I have an important packet I shall dispatch a courier. . . .
