Sire,

I have the honor of submitting to your majesty, the paper which is to authorize me to furnish a million of livres for the use of the English colonies, if you should deign to ratify it with your signature. I add to this, Sire, the draught of the reply which I mean to make to Mr. Beaumarchais; if your majesty should ,approve of it, I beg that it may be returned to me without delay. It shall not go forth in iny hand-writing, nor in that of any of my clerks or secretaries: I will employ that of my son, which cannot be known; and, although he is only in his fifteenth year, I can answer positively for his discretion. As it is of consequence that this operation should not be detected, or at l~ast imputed to the Government. I propose, if your majesty consents, to call hither the Sieur Montaudoin. The ostensible motive will be, to ask an account of his correspondence with the Americans, and the real one, to charge him with the transmission to them, of the funds which your majesty is pleased to grant them, directing, at the same time, all the pr,ecautions to be ta.ken, as if he advanced the funds on his own account. On this head, also, I take the liberty of requesting the orders of your majesty. That being dorie, I will write to the Marquis Grimaldi. (Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Spain;) I will inform him in detail of our operation, and propose to him (de la doubler) to do the same.