The unexpected return of Mr Simeon Deane gives me the opportunity of enclosing you a copy of my last, which went by an express from Spain, to which be pleased to refer. I should before this have set off for Vienna, but the Commissioners at this Court have not yet found time to examine the papers relative to the commercial concerns of Congress, taken from the private papers of the late Mr Thomas Morris, as Mr Deane’s card of this date (a copy of which is enclosed) will show. As soon as that business is finished, I shall immediately set out to execute your commands in Germany, where, I am sorry to inform you, there are now appearances of an approaching rupture between the Emperor and King of Prussia, relative to the possession of the late Elector of Bavaria’s estates. The Elector Palatine, who is the rightful heir, has agreed by treaty, signed the 12th ult. between him and the Emperor, on the division of the Bavarian estates, but the King of Prussia is not satisfied, because he has not a share; he has therefore commenced a negotiation with Great Britain, and the Princes in Germany, to support his pretensions to some parts of Germany, founded on claims of right that go several generations back. Great Britain, you may be sure, will instigate him to go on, because if war ensues, France will probably take part with the emperor, which will render their meditated attack on her more likely to succeed; but I still hope peace will be maintained by negotiation in that quarter. The British ministry are now fairly pushed to the wall; after exerting every effort to procure men for the ensuing campaign, both at home and abroad, and finding it impracticable any where, so odious are they and their measures, they have recourse to acts of Parliament, which are so presumptuous and treacherous, that it is hardly possible to say in which they excel. You will have the two bills by this conveyance, which are too plain to be misunderstood by any one who knows the framers; therefore, I shall only observe, that by the first the _right_ of taxing you is explicitly enacted, though suspended for the present, which is going something further than the declaratory act, for by that the right of taxation was only implied. By the second bill, the Commissioners are vested with full powers to do all possible mischief to you, and no possible good, until it is confirmed by Parliament. Under these circumstances I do not well see how any treaty can be commenced, nor perhaps will it be prudent, in the moment of their weakness and distress, to agree to a cessation of hostilities by land, unless your enemies will remove all their troops to Europe.