of the steam-mills, with the famous Boulton, to whom those of
London belong, and who is here at this time. He compares the effect of
steam with that of horses, in the following manner. Six horses, aided
with the most advantageous combination of the mechanical powers hitherto
tried, will grind six bushels of flour in an hour; at the end of which
time they are all in a foam, and must rest. They can work thus six hours
in the twenty-four, grinding thirty-six bushels of flour, which is
six to each horse, for the twenty-four hours. His steam-mill in London
consumes one hundred and twenty bushels of coal in twenty-four hours,
turns ten pair of stones, which grind eight bushels of flour an hour
each, which is nineteen hundred and twenty bushels in the twenty-four
hours. This makes a peck and a half of coal perform exactly as much as a
horse in one day can perform.

LETTER XXXIV.--TO COLONEL MONROE, December 18, 1786

TO COLONEL MONROE.

Paris, December 18, 1786.

Dear Sir,

Your letters of August the 19th and October the 12th have come duly to
hand. My last to you was of the 11th of August. Soon after that date I
got my right wrist dislocated, which has till now deprived me of the use
of that hand; and even now I can use it but slowly, and with pain. The
revisal of the Congressional intelligence contained in your letters,
makes me regret the loss of it on your departure. I feel, too, the
want of a person there to whose discretion I can trust confidential
communications, and on whose friendship I can rely against the unjust
designs of malevolence. I have no reason to suppose I have enemies in
Congress; yet it is too possible, to be without that fear. Some
symptoms make me suspect, that my proceedings to redress the abusive
administration of tobacco by the Farmers General have indisposed towards
me a powerful person in Philadelphia, who was profiting from that abuse.
An expression in the enclosed letter of M. de Calonne, would seem to
imply, that I had asked the abolition of Mr. Morris's contract. I never
did. On the contrary, I always observed to them, that it would be unjust
to annul that contract. I was led to this, by principles both of justice
and interest. Of interest, because that contract would keep up the price
of tobacco here to thirty-four, thirty-six, and thirty-eight livres,
from which it will fall when it shall no longer have that support.
However, I have done what was right, and I will not so far wou