If the packet, which I sent off for L'Orient early this morning comes safe to hand, your Excellency will receive a copy of my letter of the 31st ultimo, to his Excellency the Count de Vergennes, communicating to him the general object of my mission, my letter to yourself of the same date, a copy of the Count's answer to me of the 1st instant, proposing a conference with me before my departure, and my answer to _that_ of the 2d, together with my letter of the same date to you. I hurried these away, because I conceived the Count's letter clearly manifested the sentiments of his Majesty's Minister on the subject of my mission, and was afraid the opportunity of sending them would otherwise be lost. Whether I was too hasty in this opinion formed upon his letter, Congress will judge. However that may be, I am happy to say, that in the conference I had with his Excellency this morning, (being, at my particular desire, introduced to him by Dr Franklin) I did not perceive that he had formed any fixed judgment upon it. Though he opened the conference with ideas perfectly consonant with those I had supposed him to entertain on the subject, yet, when I had explained to him my proposed line of conduct, he did not persist in them. He seemed rather to have desired an opportunity of communicating to me his reflections, by way of caution and advice, than as serious objections to the mission itself. He asked if I had any particular object of negotiation in view, to which I answered, that I had communicated the general object of my mission in my first letter to him, that I had it not in contemplation to precipitate any negotiation whatever, that I did not think it agreeable to the design of Congress, and that I certainly would never expose them to any indignities; that it was thought by Congress expedient to have some person at St Petersburg, with an eventual character, who might improve the favorable moment for assuming it. He inquired whether I had received any assurances from that country, that my residence in it would be acceptable. I told him, a gentleman, not a native of the country, had written from thence, that some persons of rank, whether they were connected with the Court at all I could not say, had expressed their wishes that some person should be sent there from America, capable of giving information of the state of our affairs.