My Dear Sir: I am your debtor for two letters, one of the 12th of December, the other of the 8th of April. Since the receipt of the first I have paid my respects to you in a line or two by a Major Swan, but, as it was introductory only of him, it requires an apology rather than entitles me to a credit in our epistolary correspondence. If I had as good a knack, my dear Marquis, [Footnote 23] as you have at saying handsome things, I would endeavor to pay you in kind for the many flattering expressions of your letters, having an ample field to work in; but as I am a clumsy laborer in the manufactory of compliments, I must first profess my unworthiness of those which you have bestowed on me, and then, conscious of my inability of meeting you upon that ground, confess that it is better for me not to enter the list, than to retreat from it in disgrace. [Footnote 23: By the death of his brother, Philippe Louis of Chastellux, on the 26th January, 1784, the Chevalier had taken this title. ED. C. W.] It gives me great pleasure to find by my last letters from France that the dark clouds which overspread your hemisphere are yielding to the sunshine of peace. My first wish is to see the blessings of it diffused through all countries, and among all ranks in every country, and that we should consider ourselves as the children of a common Parent, and be disposed to acts of brotherly kindness toward one another. In that case restrictions of trade would vanish: we should take your wines, your fruits, and surplusage of such articles as our necessities or convenience might require and in return give you our fish, our oil, our tobacco, our naval stores, etc.; and in like manner should exchange produce with other countries, to the reciprocal advantage of each. And as the globe is large, why need we wrangle for a small spot of it? If one country cannot contain us, another should open its arms to us. But these halcyon days (if they ever did exist) are now no more. A wise Providence, I presume, has decreed it otherwise, and we shall be obliged to go on in the old way, disputing and now and then fighting, until the great globe itself dissolves.