chine for cleaning it. At Marseilles I hoped
to know what the Piedmont machine was; but I could find nobody who knew
anything of it. I determined, therefore, to sift the matter to the
bottom, by crossing the Alps into the rice country. I found their
machine exactly such a one as you had described to me in Congress in
the year 1783. There was but one conclusion then to be drawn, to wit,
that the rice was of a different species, and I determined to take
enough to put you in seed; they informed me, however, that its
exportation in the husk was prohibited, so I could only bring off as
much as my coat and surtout pockets would hold. I took measures with a
muleteer to run a couple of sacks across the Apennines to Genoa, but
have not great dependence on its success. The little, therefore, which
I brought myself, must be relied on for fear we should get no more; and
because, also, it is genuine from Vercilli, where the best is made of
all the Sardinian Lombardy, the whole of which is considered as
producing a better rice than the Milanese. This is assigned as the
reason for the strict prohibition. Piedmont rice sold at Nice, (the
port of its exportation,) when I was there, at seventeen livres French,
the French hundred weight. It varies from time to time as the price of
wheat does with us. The price of Carolina rice at Bordeaux, Nantes,
L'Orient and Havre, varies from sixteen florins to twenty-four florins
the French quintal, which is equal to one hundred and nine pounds our
weight. The best ports to send it to are Bordeaux and Havre, (or Rouen,
which is the same thing as Havre,) but it is essential that it arrive
here a month before the commencement of Lent, when the principal demand
is made for it. Carolina rice, after being sorted here into several
qualities, sells from six sols to ten sols the French pound, retail,
according to the quality. Unsorted and wholesale about thirty florins
the French quintal. Piedmont rice is of but one quality, which sells at
retail at ten sous the French pound, and wholesale is about three or
four livres dearer than yours. In order to induce your countrymen to
ship their rice here directly, I have proposed to some merchants here
to receive consignments, allowing the consigner to draw in the moment
of shipping for as much as he could sell on the spot, and the balance
when it should be sold. But they say this is impossible. They are to
consider and inform me what are the most favorable terms on whi