This will be delivered to your Majesty by our faithful citizen, Thomas Barclay, whom I name Consul for these United States in the dominions of your Majesty, and who, to the integrity and knowledge qualifying him for that office, unites the peculiar advantage of having been the agent, through whom our treaty with the late Emperor was received. I pray your Majesty to protect him in the exercise of his functions for the patronage of the commerce between our two countries, and of those who carry it on. May that God, whom we both adore, bless your imperial Majesty with long life, health, and success, and have you always, great and magnanimous friend, under his holy keeping. Written at Philadelphia, the thirty-first day of March, in the fifteenth year of our sovereignty and independence, from your good and faithful friend, George Washington. By the President. Th: Jefferson. LETTER LXIV.--TO FULWAR SKIPWITH, May 13,1791 TO FULWAR SKIPWITH. Philadelphia, May 13,1791. Sir, You will readily conceive, that the union of domestic with the foreign affairs under the department of State, brings on the head of this department such incessant calls, not admitting delay, as oblige him to postpone whatever will bear postponing: hence, though it is important that I should continue to receive, from time to time, regular information from you of whatever occurs within your notice, interesting to the United States, yet it is not in my power to acknowledge the receipt of your letters, regularly as they come. I mention this circumstance, that you may ascribe the delay of acknowledgment to the real cause, and that it may not produce any relaxation on your part in making all those communications which it is important should be received, and which govern our proceedings, though it is not in my power to note it to you specially. I had hoped that Congress, at their last session, would have passed a bill for regulating the functions of Consuls. Such an one was laid before them, but there being a considerable difference of opinion as to some of its parts, it was finally lost by the shortness of the session, which the constitution had limited to the 3rd of March. It will be taken up again at the ensuing session of October next: in the mean time, you will be pleased to govern yourself by the instructions already given.