poken in this letter of our treaty of amity and commerce
with this Republic, signed finally by both parties the 8th of this
month, because Mr Adams will give you this detail better than I can. I
shall content myself with saying, that I have every reason to be
persuaded that he is satisfied with the zeal, with which I have
fulfilled the tasks which he has required of me, in the operations
which have preceded this signature, and pray God that the United
States may gather from it the most abundant fruits.

_October 22d._ I am anxious to see an answer to the extract I sent to
your Excellency, agreeably to the wish and permission of Mr Adams, of
a certain letter which he wrote me. For so long as I am not openly
recognised and suitably sustained by Congress, my precarious condition
here is cruel, in the midst of the Anglomanes, who wish to see me
perish ignobly, and in the bosom of a family whose complaints and
reproaches I fear more than death. Mr Laurens, in his hasty passage
through this country, was perfectly sensible of it. He knows that I
serve the United States constantly, without respect of persons. "_You
have been slighted_," are his own words; and when I testified to him
my regrets for his departure from Europe, he had the goodness to add,
that these regrets were contrary to my interest. Permit me, Sir, to
commend them to you, and if Mr Laurens has returned to you safely, as
I hope, on the arrival of this, will you express to him the sentiments
of the most affectionate respect which I retain for him, as well as
for all the great men in America, who have served under the sublime
principles, which have animated me as well as them; and in which I, as
well, as they, will live and die.

I am, with great respect, &c.

DUMAS.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] The 12th of September, the Prince on his return from the Texel,
reported positively to their High Mightinesses, that all was there
ready, that the vessels were in a condition for sea and for action,
and waited only for his orders.

* * * * *

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

The Hague, November 15th, 1782.

Sir,

Yesterday morning, after a conference with his Excellency the Duc de
la Vauguyon, I went in a post chaise to Rotterdam and Dort, in order
to advise our friends in these two cities of some changes about to be
ma