ch they
can receive it. I am told that freight, insurance, and commission are
about four livres the French quintal to a sea-port town. I have written
so long a letter on the subject of rice to Mr. Drayton for the Society
of Agriculture, that I will trouble you with no further particulars,
but refer you to that. Indeed, I am sensible I have written too much on
the subject. Being absolutely ignorant of it myself, it was impossible
for me to know what particulars merited communication. I thought it
best, therefore, to communicate everything. After writing that letter,
I received one from Mr. Izard, by which I found that he had examined
the rice-process in Lombardy. He was so much more capable than myself
of giving the details, that I had at one moment determined to suppress
my letter. However, observing that he considered the rice at Piedmont
to be of the same species with yours, and suspecting myself certainly
that it is not, I determined to hazard my letter and all those
criticisms which fall justly on an ignorant person writing on a subject
to those much more learned in it than himself. A part of my letter,
too, related to the olive tree and caper, the first of which would
surely succeed in your country, and would be an infinite blessing after
some fifteen or twenty years. The caper would also probably succeed,
and would offer a very great and immediate profit. I thank you for your
obliging mention of my worthless Notes on Virginia. Worthless and bad
as they are, they have been rendered more so, as I am told, by a
translation into French. That I may have neither merit nor demerit not
my own, I have consented to their publication in England. I advised the
bookseller to send two hundred copies to Philadelphia, and two hundred
to Richmond, supposing that number might be sold in the United States;
but I do not know whether he will do it. If you will give me leave, I
will send you a copy of the original impression. I congratulate you, my
dear friend, on the law of your State, for suspending the importation
of slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to
prevent it forever. This abomination must have an end. And there is a
superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it. The
distractions of Holland thicken apace. They begin to cut one another's
throats heartily. I apprehend the neighboring powers will interfere;
but it is not yet clear whether in concert or by taking opposite sides.
It is a po