I shall have a correspondent in each of our seaport towns, who, on the arrival of your vessels, shall wait on the captains and offer every service in my power; he will receive their letters, bills of lading, and transmit the whole to me; even things which you may wish to arrive safely in any country in Europe, after having conferred about them with your deputy, I shall cause to be kept in some secure place; even the answers shall go with great punctuality through me, and this way will save much anxiety and many delays. I request of you, gentlemen, to send me next spring, if it is possible for you, ten or twelve thousand hogsheads, or more if you can, of tobacco from Virginia, of the best quality. You very well understand that my commerce with you is carried on in Europe, that it is in the ports of Europe I make and take returns. However well bottomed my house may be, and however I may have appropriated many millions to your trade alone, yet it would be impossible for me to support it, if all the dangers of the sea, of exports and imports, were not entirely at your risk. Whenever you choose to receive my goods in any of our windward or leward islands, you have only to inform me of it, and my correspondents shall be there according to your orders, and then you shall have no augmentation of price, but of freight and insurance. But the risk of being taken by your enemies, still remains with you, according to the declaration rendered incontestable by the measures I shall take by your deputy himself. This deputy should receive as soon as possible, full power and authority to accept what I shall deliver to him, to receive my accounts, examine them, make payments thereupon, or enter into engagements, which you shall be bound to ratify, as the head of that brave people to whom I am devoted; in short, always to treat about your interests immediately with me. Notwithstanding the open opposition, which the king of France, his ministers, and the agents of administration show, and ought to show to every thing that carries the least appearance of violating foreign treaties, and the internal ordinances of the kingdom, I dare promise to you, gentlemen, that my indefatigable zeal shall never be wanting to clear up difficulties, soften prohibitions, and, in short, facilitate all operations of a commerce, which my advantage, much less than yours, has made me undertake with you. What I have just informed you of is only a general sketch, subject to all the augmentations and restrictions, which events may point out to us.