* * * * * TO JOHN JAY. Paris, May 3d, 1787. My Dear Sir, Had I been sooner acquainted with Mr Forrest's departure, I would have given you more particular accounts of the latter part of our session, but have only time to enclose the speeches that were made by the heads of the several departments. Not that such etiquette speeches are in any way interesting on the other side of the Atlantic, but because you will in the same book find that of the Archbishop of Toulouse, wherein he gives the King's answer to the several demands of the Bureau. You will see, that if the madness and corruption of the late administration have laid us under a necessity to acknowledge that, after all other means would be exhausted, taxes must be employed to fill up the vacancy, yet we have gained not a little by the convocation of the Assembly. A more equal repartition of taxes, including the clergy, who hitherto had escaped them, and the powerful ones among the noblesse, who were not very exact; Provincial Assemblies on an elective principle, which, by the bye, are big with happy, very happy consequences, that will come to light as we go on; economies to the amount of forty millions at least; the destruction of interior custom houses; a modification of the Gabelle; an annual publication of the account of the finances; the printing of all pensions, gifts, &c.; more proper arrangements within some departments; and a more general instruction, habit of thinking on public affairs, &c. &c. are the good effects of this Assembly, which, although it was not national, since we were not representatives, behaved with great propriety and patriotism. On the last day of our session, I had the happiness to carry two motions in my Bureau which were, I may almost say, unanimously agreed to; the one in favor of the Protestant citizens of France, the other for an examination of the laws, particularly the criminal ones. Enclosed is the resolve framed by the Bureau, which Count D'Artois, our President, presented to the King, and was graciously received. I was the more pleased with it, as some step of the kind, with respect to the protestants, that had been tried in the Parliament of Paris, had not the proper success. So far are we from religious freedom, that even in asking for tolerance, we must measure our expressions. I was more liberally supported, by a learned and virtuous prelate, the bishop of Langres, who spoke admirably on the religious motion I had introduced. You will see that the Bureau clogged it with many compliments to the Roman creed, to appease the priests and devotees.