y
the Diligence, that I may carry them back with me to America. I make no
apology for giving you this trouble. It is for our common country, and
common interest.

I am, with sincere and great esteem and attachment, Dear Sir, your most
obedient, humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXVII.--TO M. DE MALESHERBES, March 11, 1789

TO M. DE MALESHERBES.

Sir,

Paris, March 11, 1789.

Your zeal to promote the general good of mankind, by an interchange
of useful things, and particularly in the line of agriculture, and the
weight which your rank and station would give to your interposition,
induce me to ask it, for the purpose of obtaining one of the species of
rice which grows in Cochin-China on high lands, and which needs no
other watering than the ordinary rains. The sun and soil of Carolina are
sufficiently powerful to insure the success of this plant, and Monsieur
de Poivre gives such an account of its quality, as might induce the
Carolinians to introduce it instead of the kind they now possess, which,
requiring the whole country to be laid under water during a certain
season of the year, sweeps off numbers of the inhabitants annually, with
pestilential fevers. If you would be so good as to interest yourself
in the procuring for me some seeds of the dry rice of Cochin-China, you
would render the most precious service to my countrymen, on whose behalf
I take the liberty of asking your interposition: very happy, at the same
time, to have found such an occasion of repeating to you the homage of
those sentiments of respect and esteem, with which I have the honor to
be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXVIII.--TO JOHN JAY, March 12, 1789

TO JOHN JAY.

Sir,

Paris, March 12, 1789.

I had the honor of addressing you, on the 1st instant, through the post.
I write the present, uncertain whether Mr. Nesbitt, the bearer of your
last, will be the bearer of this, or whether it may not have to wait
some other private occasion. They have reestablished their packet-boats
here, indeed; but they are to go from Bordeaux, which, being between
four and five hundred miles from hence, is too far to send a courier
with any letters but on the most extraordinary occasions and without a
courier, they must pass through the post-office. I shall, therefore, not
make use of this mode of conveyance, but prefer sending my letters by
a private hand by the way of London. The