[Footnote 193: This letter is also taken from a rough draught without date. The allusions to Count d'Estaing and his fleet fix it in September or October of 1778.] [Footnote 194: About this time many of the letters written by both the parties were intercepted by British cruisers.] 238. JOHN ADAMS. Passy, 6 November, 1778. We have received information that so many of our letters have been thrown overboard that I fear you will not have heard so often from me as both of us wish. I have written often, but my letters have not been worth so much as other things which I have sent you. I sent you a small present by Captain Niles, but he is taken by a Jersey privateer. I sent you also some other things by Captain Barnes; and what affects me quite as much, I sent the things that my dear brother Cranch requested me to send, by these same vessels. These vessels were chosen because they were fast sailers, and so small as to be able to see danger before they could be seen; but all is taken and sent into Guernsey and Jersey. By Captain Tucker I sent you the whole of the list you gave me of articles for the family. These, I hope, have arrived safe, but I have been so unlucky that I feel averse to meddling in this way. The whole loss is a trifle, it is true. But to you in the convenience of the family, and to Mr. Cranch in his business, it would have been of value. If the _Boston_ arrives, the little chest she carries to you will be of service. My anxiety for you and for the public is not diminished by time or distance. The great number of accidental disappointments in the course of the last summer are afflicting. But we hope for better luck another year. It seems to be the intention of Heaven that we should be taught the full value of our liberty by the dearness of the purchase, and the importance of public virtue by the necessity of it. There seems to be also a further design, that of eradicating forever from the heart of every American every tender sentiment towards Great Britain, that we may, some time or other, know how to make the full advantage of our independence by more extensive connections with other countries. Whatever siren songs of peace may be sung in your ears, you may depend upon it from me (who unhappily have been seldom mistaken in my guesses of the intentions of the British government for fourteen years) that every malevolent passion and every insidious art will predominate in the British cabinet against us. Their threats of Russians and of great reinforcements are false and impracticable, and they know them to be so; but their threats of doing mischief with the forces they have will be verified as far as their power.