I have escaped, as much as I am able, from my chains, to make journeys to the Hague, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, in order to maintain and increase useful acquaintances; and when I obtain any light I communicate it to friends. The great majority, almost the whole of our merchants, are for you. The regencies of our cities, and among others Amsterdam, seem to take part with the Court, which is allied with and friendly to England. But all this is precarious, and will change with your fortune. Let us hear of a successful campaign, and your friends will show themselves, your partizans will multiply; they will lose by degrees this panic terror for a power, that is not loved by the multitude. These persons are chiefly large annuitants, whose hearts are in the sources of their income. Another important truth, which I have learned at Amsterdam, is that no banking house is willing to take part, to the amount of a shilling, in the loan of five millions sterling, which England has raised, because they were not content with the offered premium and with her solidity, nor sure of selling the stock in detail. Distrust increases here, in proportion as England sinks. The premium ought to be two and a half per cent, but we know that in England even the bankers are content with their sales in detail at five eights per cent. I have made acquaintance and connexion with a House, to whom I shall address in future all my despatches for you, and under cover to whom you may in safety address to me your letters, viz. Messrs Lalande & Fynge, merchants, Amsterdam. If you will send me regularly, by your vessels going to St Eustatia and Curacoa, one at least of your best public papers to the address above pointed out, or in the packets of friends in France, I will make good use of it for your service in our periodical papers. They complain everywhere of knowing nothing of your affairs, but what the English wish Europe should know; and on this subject we have often to wait some months before the truth is unfolded from a heap of impostures, which do not fail sometimes to answer the malice of your enemies in leaving false impressions on minds, which I wish to be able to destroy in their birth. I have the Honor to be, &c. DUMAS. * * * * * TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. August 22d, 1777. Gentlemen,