I thank You for the Papers and your Card of 22d July. The Letters inclosed I shall send along. My Friends have all become as tender of me as You are; and to save me trouble send me no Letters: so I know nothing about You. I hope You have not been all sick as I have. I hope You have not all quite so much Business as I have to do; at least I hope it is to better effect, and to more profit, both public and private.

To negotiate a Loan of Money, to sign the obligations for it, to make a thousand Visits, some idle, some not idle, all necessary—to write Treaties in English, and be obliged to have them translated into French and Dutch, and to reason and discuss every Article to— to— to— to— to— &ca &ca. &ca. is too much for my Patience and Strength.

My Correspondence with Congress and their Ministers in Europe is a great deal of work. In short I am weary, and nobody pities me. Nobody seems to know any thing about me. Nobody knows that I do any thing or have any thing to do.

One thing, thank God, is certain. I have planted the American Standard at the Hague. There let it wave and fly! in Triumph over Sir Joseph York and British Pride. I shall look down upon the Flagg Staff with pleasure from the other World.

Not the Declaration of American Independence—not the Massachusetts Constitution—not the Alliance with France, ever gave me more Satisfaction or more pleasing Prospects for our Country than this Event. It is a Pledge against Friends and Enemies. It is an eternal Barrier against all Dangers from the House of Bourbon, as well 440as a present Security against England. Perhaps every Imagination dont rove into futurity, as much as mine, nor care so much about it.

I do not ask you to consider this as a letter to you. I have writen so much for several days that I am absolutely beat out; and my health besides begins to fail me. A most constant head ach hangs upon me, and almost stupifies me: Consider this therefore only as a cover of the enclosed letters. I shall probably trouble you more frequently in this way than I have ever done; but it must be upon the express condition that you will assure me in your next without fail, that you will minute the postage to my account: otherwise I must send my letters into other hands which I wou'd not wish to do. The one mark'd Triplicate is a Copy of that of which you have already by the post of last Friday received the original and duplicate.1 You will pay an attention to this and let all three be sent by different vessels. Another parcel you will receive thro' other hands by this post are originals. Adieu my dear Sir, I hope you are happier at the Hotel des Etats Unis than I am here, about to be left by your Son2 the only Countryman I have here, and to add to this, by a faithful domestic who will not weather out with me another of these frightful midnight Winters. Do say I had better quit the stage and return to America, since I am no longer at liberty to pursue the plan you and I think the best, as well as most consonant to the honour and dignity of the United States even tho' it shou'd not succede. Depend upon it nothing can or will be done here till our Independance is acknowledge by England, under such a line as is chalked out to me. My Friend, may piddling politicks never disgrace our Councils. But this system is the offspring of you know what. Adieu once more I am sick at heart.