e will
do none the less good among the friends of America in this country. I
wish he was already with us.

I was going, Sir, to close this packet, when I received the visit of
M. Van de Perre, partner of M. Meyners, who form together the most
eminent commercial house at Middlebourg, in Zealand. He begs me to
support the claim that he has made through Messrs I. de Neufville &
Son, and by another way also to Congress on the ship Berkenbos, bound
from Liverpool to Leghorn, and loaded with herrings and lead for Dutch
and Italian account, taken by John Paul Jones, Captain of the
Continental frigate Alliance. M. Van de Perre is of the most
distinguished family in Zealand, Director of the East India Company,
nephew of M. Van Berckel, First Counsellor, Pensionary of Amsterdam,
the brave republican of whom all my letters make mention, and who is
the great friend of Americans. I have no need to say anything more to
recommend the affair of this vessel to Congress.

I have the honor to be, &c.

DUMAS.

* * * * *

JOHN ADAMS TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Paris, June 6th, 1780.

Sir,

I thank you for your letter, in answer to mine of the 21st of May, and
for your kind congratulations on my arrival here.

Mr Brown, with whom you took your walks in the neighborhood of Paris,
has been gone from home some weeks, on his way hence. I should have
had much pleasure if I had been one of the party. I have rambled in
most of the scenes round this city, and find them very pleasant, but
much more indebted to art than to nature. Philadelphia, in the
purlieus of which, as well as those of Baltimore and Yorktown, I have
often sought health and pleasure in the same way, in company with our
venerable Secretary, Charles Thompson, will in future time, when the
arts shall have established their empire in the new world, become much
more striking. But Boston above all, around which I have much oftener
wandered, in company with another venerable character, little known in
Europe, but to whose virtues and public merits in the cause of
mankind, history will do justice, will one day present scenes of
grandeur and beauty, superior to any other place I have ever yet seen.

The letter of General Clinton, when I transmitted it to you, was not
suspected to be an imposition. There are some circumstance