amount of a shilling, in
the loan of five millions sterling, which England has raised, because
they were not content with the offered premium and with her solidity,
nor sure of selling the stock in detail. Distrust increases here, in
proportion as England sinks. The premium ought to be two and a half
per cent, but we know that in England even the bankers are content
with their sales in detail at five eights per cent.

I have made acquaintance and connexion with a House, to whom I shall
address in future all my despatches for you, and under cover to whom
you may in safety address to me your letters, viz. Messrs Lalande &
Fynge, merchants, Amsterdam. If you will send me regularly, by your
vessels going to St Eustatia and Curacoa, one at least of your best
public papers to the address above pointed out, or in the packets of
friends in France, I will make good use of it for your service in our
periodical papers. They complain everywhere of knowing nothing of your
affairs, but what the English wish Europe should know; and on this
subject we have often to wait some months before the truth is unfolded
from a heap of impostures, which do not fail sometimes to answer the
malice of your enemies in leaving false impressions on minds, which I
wish to be able to destroy in their birth.

I have the Honor to be, &c.

DUMAS.

* * * * *

TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

August 22d, 1777.

Gentlemen,

In spite of my extreme circumspection, your enemies are not altogether
without knowledge of me, and, not able to persecute me openly, are
endeavoring secretly to deprive me of my post in this country. I sent
an account yesterday to Paris, and today to a certain person at the
Hague, of what has happened to me. I am sustained in all my losses by
the firm resolution to live and die the faithful servant of United
America, and by consequence, also, with the most profound respect for
the honorable General Congress and yourselves. God bless your just
arms.

_September 5th._--It would be useless for me to give you copies of the
last letters that I wrote to Paris. They chiefly concern myself; and I
await their answers. I will say only in general here, that from the
moment when I was first honored with your orders and your confidence,
I have devoted to you in every even