As to Digges, I have no confidence in him, nor in anything he says, or may say, of his being sent by Ministers. Nor will I have any communication with him, except in receiving and considering the justification of himself, which he pretends he shall be able and intends to make, for his excessive drafts on me, on account of the relief I have ordered to the prisoners, and his embezzlement of the money. You justly observe in yours of the 12th, that the first object is to procure a "meeting of qualified and authorised persons," and that you understand the Ministry will be ready to proceed towards opening a negotiation as soon as the bill shall pass, and therefore it is necessary to consult time and place, and manner and persons, on each side. This you wrote while the old Ministry existed. If the new have the same intentions, and desire a general peace, they may easily discharge Mr Laurens from those engagements, which make his acting in the commission improper, and except Mr Jefferson, who remains in America, and is not expected here, we the Commissioners of Congress can easily be got together ready to meet yours, at such place as shall be agreed to by the powers at war, in order to form the treaty. God grant, that there may be wisdom enough assembled to make, if possible, a peace that shall be perpetual, and that the idea of any nations being natural enemies to each other, may be abolished for the honor of human nature. With regard to those who may be commissioned from your government, whatever personal preferences I may conceive in my own mind, it cannot become me to express them. I only wish for wise and honest men. With such, a peace may be speedily concluded. With contentious wranglers the negotiation may be drawn into length, and finally frustrated.