estore
protection to the inhabitants. The details from the country are as
distressing as I had apprehended they would be. Most of them are
doubtless false, but many must still be true. Abundance of chateaux are
certainly burnt and burning, and not a few lives sacrificed. The worst
is probably over in this city; but I do not know whether it is so in the
country. Nothing important has taken place in the rest of Europe.

I have the honor to be, with the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir,
your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER VIII.--TO COLONEL GOUVION, August 15,1789

TO COLONEL GOUVION.

Paris, August 15,1789.

Sir,

I have the pleasure to inform you, that money is now deposited in the
hands of Messrs. Grand and company, for paying the arrears of interest
due to the foreign officers who served in the American army. I will
beg the favor of you to notify thereof as many of them as you find
convenient; and if you can furnish the addresses of any others to
Messrs. Grand and company, they will undertake to give notice to them.
The delays which have attended the completion of this object, have been
greater than I expected. This has not proceeded from any inattention of
Congress or any of their servants to the justice due to those officers.
This has been sufficiently felt. But it was not till the present moment,
that their efforts to furnish such a sum of money have been successful.
The whole amount of arrears to the beginning of the present year, is
about ten thousand louis d'ors.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and
attachment, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER IX.--TO JOHN JAY, August 27, 1789

TO JOHN JAY.

Paris, August 27, 1789.

Sir,

I am honored with your favor of June the 19th, informing me that
permission is given me to make a short visit to my native country, for
which indulgence I beg leave to return my thanks to the President, and
to yourself, Sir, for the expedition with which you were so good as to
forward it, after it was obtained. Being advised that October is the
best month of the autumn for a passage to America, I shall wish to sail
about the first of that month and as I have a family with me, and their
baggage is considerable I must endeavor to find a vessel bound directly
for Virginia if possible.

My last letters to you have been of the 5th and 12th instant. Since