PARIS, August 15, 1787.
DEAR SIR,--A gentleman going from hence by L'Orient to Boston,
furnishes me an opportunity of recommending to your care the enclosed
letters, which I could not get ready for the last packet. Pray inform
me in your next whether letters directed to your foreign ministers, or
franked by them, are free of postage; that they ought to be so is
acknowledged substantially by the resolution of Congress, allowing us
to charge postages. I have sometimes suspected that my letters stagnate
in the post-offices. My letters by the last packet brought down the
domestic news of this country to the day in which the bed of justice
was held. The day before yesterday the parliament house was surrounded
by ten thousand people, who received them on their adjournment with
acclamations of joy, took out the horses of the principal speakers and
drew their chariots themselves to their hotels. The parliament not
having taken the desperate step (as far as is yet known) of forbidding
the execution of the new tax laws by an _Arret de defence sur peine de
mort_, we presume it is the fear of a popular commotion which has
occasioned the King to exile them to Troyes. This is known only this
morning. The ministry here have certain information that the English
squadron has sailed and took its course westwardly. This is another
move towards war. No other important fact has taken place since my
letter by the packet. Adieu. Yours affectionately.