to the object which first suggested it, that of trying the
effect of the mineral waters of Aix, in Provence, on my hand. I
tried these, because recommended among six or eight others as equally
beneficial, and because they would place me at the beginning of a tour
to the seaports of Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, and L'Orient, which I
had long meditated, in hopes that a knowledge of the places and persons
concerned in our commerce, and the information to be got from them,
might enable me sometimes to be useful. I had expected to satisfy myself
at Marseilles, of the causes of the difference of quality between the
rice of Carolina, and that of Piedmont, which is brought in quantities
to Marseilles. Not being able to do it, I made an excursion of three
weeks into the rice country beyond the Alps, going through it from
Vercelli to Pavia, about sixty miles. I found the difference to be, not
in the management, as had been supposed both here and in Carolina, but
in the species of rice; and I hope to enable them in Carolina, to begin
the cultivation of the Piedmont rice, and carry it on, hand in hand,
with their own, that they may supply both qualities which is absolutely
necessary at this market. I had before endeavored to lead the depot of
rice from Cowes to Honfleur, and hope to get it received there on such
terms, as may draw that branch of commerce from England to this country.
It is an object of two hundred and fifty thousand guineas a year. While
passing through the towns of Turin, Milan, and Genoa, I satisfied
myself of the practicability of introducing our whale-oil for their
consumption, and suppose it would be equally so in the other great
cities of that country. I was sorry that I was not authorized to set the
matter on foot. The merchants with whom I chose to ask conferences met
me freely, and communicated fully, knowing I was in a public character.
I could, however, only prepare a disposition to meet our oil-merchants.
On the article of tobacco, I was more in possession of my ground; and
put matters into a train for inducing their government to draw their
tobaccos directly from the United States, and not, as heretofore, from
Great Britain. I am now occupied with the new ministry here, to put
the concluding hand to the new regulations for our commerce with this
country, announced in the letter of Monsieur de Calonne, which I
sent you last fall. I am in hopes, in addition to those, to obtain
a suppression of the duties