e receipt of your letters may enable us to decide what
articles of those papers have been true. As these come principally
by the English packet, I will take the liberty of asking you to write
always by that packet, giving a full detail of such events as may be
communicated through that channel; and indeed most may. If your letters
leave Paris nine or ten days before the sailing of the packet, we shall
be able to decide, on the moment, on the facts true or false, with which
she comes charged. For communications of a secret nature, you will avail
yourself of other conveyances, and you will be enabled to judge
which are best, by the preceding statement. News from Europe is very
interesting at this moment, when it is so doubtful whether a war will
take place between our two neighbors.

Congress have passed an act for establishing the seat of government
at Georgetown, from the year 1800, and in the mean time to remove to
Philadelphia. It is to that place, therefore, that your future letters
had better be addressed. They have still before them the bill for
funding the public debts. That has been hitherto delayed by a question,
whether the debts contracted by the particular Slates for general
purposes should, at once, be assumed by the General Government. A
developement of circumstances, and more mature consideration, seem to
have produced some change of opinion on the subject. When it was first
proposed, a majority was against it. There is reason to believe, by
the complexion of some later votes, that the majority will now be for
assuming these debts to a fixed amount. Twenty-one millions of dollars
are proposed. As soon as this point is settled, the funding bill will
pass, and Congress will adjourn. That adjournment will probably be
between the 6th and 13th of August. They expect it sooner. I shall then
be enabled to inform you, ultimately, on the subject of the French
debt, the negotiations for the payment of which will be referred to the
executive, and will not be retarded by them an unnecessary moment. A
bill has passed, authorizing the President to raise the salary of a
_Charge des Affaires_ to four thousand five hundred dollars, from the
first day of July last. I am authorized by him to inform you, that
yours will accordingly be at that rate, and that you will be allowed for
gazettes, translating or printing papers, where that shall be necessary,
postage, couriers, and necessary aids to poor American sailors, in
additio