lates
to commerce. Accept, Sir, for yourself and Mad. de la Condamine, our
heartiest congratulations.

You will recollect, that the last time I had the honour of seeing you in
1742, previous to your leaving Quito, I told you that I reckoned on
taking the same road that you were about to do, along the River of
Amazons, as much owing to the wish I had of knowing this way, as to
insure for my wife the most commodious mode of travelling, by saving her
a long journey over-land, through a mountainous country, in which the
only conveyance is on mules. You took the pains, in the course of your
voyage, to give information at the Spanish and Portuguese missions
established on its banks, that one of your companions would follow you;
and, though several years elapsed from the period of your leaving them,
this had not been forgotten. My wife was exceedingly solicitous of
seeing France; but her repeated pregnancies, for several years after
your departure, prevented my consent to her being exposed to the
fatigues incident on so long a voyage. Towards the close of 1748, I
received intelligence of the death of my father; and my presence thence
becoming indispensable for the arrangement of my family affairs, I
resolved on repairing to Cayenne by myself down the river; and planning
every thing on the way to enable my wife to follow the same road with
comfort, I departed in March 1749 from the Quito, leaving Mad. Godin at
that time pregnant. I arrived at Cayenne in April following, and
immediately wrote to M. Rouille, then minister of the navy, entreating
him to procure me passports and recommendations to the court of
Portugal, to enable me to ascend the Amazons, for the purpose of
proceeding to my family, and bringing it back with me by the same
channel. Any one but you, Sir, might be surprised at my undertaking thus
lightly a voyage of fifteen hundred leagues, for the mere purpose of
preparing accommodations for a second; but you will know that travels in
that part of the world are undertaken with much less concern than in
Europe; and those I had made during twelve years for reconnoitring the
ground for the meridian of Quito, for fixing signals on the loftiest
mountains, in going to and returning from Carthagena, had made me
perfectly a veteran. I availed myself of the opportunity afforded by the
conveyance which took my letters, to forward several objects relating to
natural history for the King's garden; among others, seed of the
Sars