t opposition to him, and probably the laws of
forfeiture against the Protestants, who were the subject of the
revocation of the edict of Nantes, which laws have never been repealed,
nor probably ever will be, even should the future condition of
Protestants here be mitigated. I shall proceed in the enquiry for him,
and let him know the result.

Your son Thomas, at Edinburgh, has done me the favor to open a little
correspondence with me. He has sometimes asked my advice as to the
course of his studies, which I have given to him the more freely as he
informed me he was not tied down to any particular plan by your
instructions. He informed me in his last letter that you proposed he
should come to Paris this fall, stay here the winter, and return to
Virginia in the spring. I understand him as proposing to study the law,
so that probably, on his return, you will place him at Williamsburg for
that purpose. On this view of his destination I venture to propose to
you another plan. The law may be studied as well in one place as
another; because it is a study of books alone, at least till near the
close of it. Books can be read equally well at Williamsburg, at London,
or Paris. The study of the law is an affair of three years, the last of
which should be spent in attending Mr. Wythe's lectures. Upon the plan
he has now in expectation, his residence here six months as a
traveller, must cost him two hundred guineas, and three years' study at
Williamsburg, four hundred and fifty guineas more, making five hundred
and fifty guineas in the whole. My proposition is that he shall pass
his two first years of legal study in some one of the villages within
an hour's walk of Paris, boarded with some good family, wherein he may
learn to speak the language, which is not to be learned in any other
way. By this means he will avoid the loss of time and money which would
be the consequence of a residence in the town, and he will be nigh
enough to come to dine, to make acquaintances, see good company, and
examine the useful details of the city. With very great economy he may
do this on one hundred guineas a year, but at his ease for one hundred
and fifty guineas. At the end of two years I would propose him a
journey through the southern parts of France, thence to Genoa, Leghorn,
Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan, Turin, Geneva, Lyons and Paris.
This will employ him seven months, and cost him three hundred and
thirty guineas, if he goes alone, or