'We, reposing especial trust and confidence in your patriotism, ability, conduct, and fidelity, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you, during our pleasure, Secretary to our Minister Plenipotentiary, appointed to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce, and of alliance with his Catholic Majesty. You are, therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of Secretary, by doing and performing all things thereunto belonging, and, in case of the death of our said Minister, you are to signify it to us by the earliest opportunity, and on such event, we authorise and direct you to take into your charge all our public affairs, which were in the hands of said Minister at the time of his death, or which may be addressed to him before notice thereof, and proceed therein, according to the instructions to our said Minister given, until our further orders. 'Witness, his Excellency, Samuel Huntington, President of the Congress of the United States of America, at Philadelphia, the 29th day of September, in the year of our Lord, 1779, and in the fourth year of our independence. 'SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, _President_. 'Attest, CHARLES THOMSON, _Secretary_.' "The inquiries in question are numerous and important. They do honor to the sagacity which suggested them, and, if fully answered, would produce a very interesting history of the present condition of the American States. On some of the subjects proposed, I can give your Excellency full and positive intelligence; on others, only general and by no means precise information. On all, however, I shall write with candor. "Such is the nature of the American governments and confederacy, that the Congress, and all other rulers of the people, are responsible to them for their conduct, and cannot withhold from their constituents a knowledge of their true situation, without subjecting themselves to all the evils, which they experience, who substitute cunning in the place of wisdom. Hence it is, that a knowledge of their affairs is easily attainable by all who will be at the trouble of collecting it, and as it is neither the policy nor inclination of America to draw a veil over any part of their affairs, your Excellency may be persuaded, that every consideration forbids their servants, by a suppression, or misrepresentation of facts, to deceive or mislead those whose amity they so sincerely endeavor to cultivate, as they do that of Spain. I. THE CIVIL STATE OF NORTH AMERICA. "Your Excellency has with great propriety arranged the subjects of your inquiry under two heads; the _Civil_ and _Military_ States of North America. The first of these is again branched into several subdivisions, at the head of which, is the _Population of each State._