f Delegates? Young Mr. Bannister desired me to send him
regularly the _Mercure de France_. I will ask leave to do this through
you, and that you will adopt such method of forwarding them to him, as
will save him from being submitted to postage, which they would not be
worth. As a compensation for your trouble, you will be free to keep
them till you shall have read them. I am, with sentiments of the most
sincere esteem, dear Sir, your friend and servant.

TO JOHN JAY.

PARIS, June 21, 1787

SIR,--I had the honor of addressing you in a letter of May the 4th,
from Marseilles, which was to have gone by the last packet. But it
arrived a few hours too late for that conveyance, and has been
committed to a private one, passing through England, with a promise
that it should go through no post office.

I was desirous, while at the seaports, to obtain a list of the American
vessels which have come to them since the peace, in order to estimate
their comparative importance to us, as well as the general amount of
our commerce with this country, so far as carried on in our own
bottoms. At Marseilles, I found there had been thirty-two, since that
period; at Cette, not a single one; at Bayonne, one of our free ports,
only one. This last fact I learned from other information, not having
visited that place; as it would have been a deviation from my route,
too considerable for the importance of the object. At Bordeaux, Nantes,
and L'Orient, I could not obtain lists in the moment; but am in hopes I
shall be able to get them ere long. Though more important to us, they
will probably be more imperfect than that of Marseilles. At Nantes, I
began with Monsieur Dobree an arrangement of his claims. I visited the
military stores, which have been detained there so long, opened some
boxes of each kind, and found the state of their contents much better
than had been represented. An exact list of the articles is to be sent
me.

The importations into L'Orient of other fish oils, besides those of the
whale, brought to my notice there a defect in the letter of Monsieur de
Calonne, of October the 22d, which letter was formerly communicated to
you. In that, _whale_ oil only was named. The other fish oils,
therefore, have continued to pay the old duties. In a conference with
Monsieur de Villedeuil, the present Comptroller General, since my
return, I proposed the extending the exemption to all _fish oils_,
according to the letter of the Hanseati