I have just received a letter from Nantes, brought in a ship from New London. I enclose your Excellency a newspaper enclosed in it, and an extract of the letter, which is from a gentleman who is a member of the assembly, and one of the judges of Boston. This is all the news I have. I hope your Excellency has more by the same vessel. I have the honor to be, &c. JOHN ADAMS. _P. S._ I have mislaid the letter from Boston. The extract informed, that a bill had passed the two Houses of Assembly, adopting the resolution of Congress of the 18th of March, and establishing an annual tax for seven years, for the redemption of their part of the bills payable in silver and gold, or in produce at the market price, in hard money. * * * * * TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. Paris, June 17th, 1780. Sir, The refugees in England are so great an obstacle to peace, that it seems not improper for me to take notice of them to Congress. Governor Hutchinson is dead. Whether the late popular insurrections, or whether the resolutions of Congress of the 18th of March, respecting their finances, by suddenly extinguishing the last rays of his hopes, put a sudden end to his life, or whether it was owing to any other cause, I know not. He was born to be the cause and the victim of popular fury, outrage, and conflagrations. Descended from an ancient and honorable family, born and educated in America, professing all the zeal of the congregational religion, affecting to honor the characters of the first planters of the new world, and to vindicate the character of America, and especially of New England, early initiated into public business, industrious and indefatigable in it, beloved and esteemed by the people, elected and trusted by them and their representatives, his views opened and extended by repeated travels in Europe, engaged in extensive correspondence in Europe as well as in America, favored by the Crown of Great Britain, and possessed of its honors and emoluments; possessed of all these advantages and surrounded by all these circumstances, he was perhaps the only man in the world who could have brought on the controversy between Great Britain and America, in the manner and at the time it was done, and involved the two countries in an enmity, which must end in their everlasting separation. Yet this was the character of the man, and these his memorable actions. An inextinguishable ambition and avarice, that were ever seen among his other qualities, and which grew with his growth and strengthened with his age and experience, and at last predominated over every other principle of his heart, rendered him credulous to a childish degree, of everything that favored his ruling passion, and blind and deaf to everything that thwarted it, to such a degree, that his representations, with those of his fellow-laborer, Bernard, drew on the King, Ministry, Parliament, and nation, to concert measures,