I received on the 12th of June, 1780, copies of your several favors of April the 29th, 1779, June the 13th, 1779, July the 9th and 16th, August and September the 16th, 1779. You will see by this what delays our correspondence sometimes meets with. I have lately received two of fresher date, viz. February the 24th, and May the 4th. I thank you much for the newspapers and journals you have from time to time sent me; I endeavor to make full returns in the same way. I could furnish a multitude of despatches with confidential informations taken out of the papers I send you, if I chose to deal in that kind of manufacture; I know the whole art of it, for I have had several volunteer correspondents in England, who have in their letters for years together communicated to me secrets of state, extracted from the newspapers, which sometimes came to hand in those papers by the same post, and sometimes by the post before. You and I send the papers themselves. Our letters may appear the leaner, but what fat they have is their own. I wrote to you the 17th of October, and the 16th of March, and have sent duplicates, some of which I hope got to hand. You mention receiving one of September the 30th, and one of December the 30th, but not that of October the 17th. The cypher you have communicated, either from some defect in your explanation, or in my comprehension, is not yet of use to me; for I cannot understand by it the little specimen you have written in it. If you have that of M. Dumas, which I left with Mr Morris, we may correspond by it when a few sentences are required only to be written in cypher, but it is too tedious for a whole letter. I send herewith copies of the instruments annulling the 11th and 12th articles of the treaty.[24] The treaty printed here by the Court omitted them, and numbered the subsequent articles accordingly. [24] For these instruments, see the Correspondence of the Commissioners in Paris, Vol. I. p. 432. I write fully to the President. The frequent hinderances the Committee of Correspondence meet with in writing as a committee, which appear from the excuses in your particular letters, and the many parts of my letters, that have long been unanswered, incline me to think, that your foreign correspondence would be best managed by one secretary, who could write when he had an opportunity, without waiting for the concurrence or opinions of his brethren, who cannot always be got conveniently together. My chief letters will, therefore, for the future be addressed to the President, till further orders. I send you enclosed some more of Mr Hartley's letters. He continues passionately to desire peace with America, but wishes we could be separated from France. With great esteem, &c. B. FRANKLIN. * * * * * JAMES LOVELL TO B. FRANKLIN. Philadelphia, August 15th, 1780. Sir,