Mille amitiés à Dumont. Fais faire mes complimens à d'Ivernois; la manière dont il s'est comporté lui fait beaucoup d'honneur. Ecris-moi promptement et longuement. Je te donnerai des nouvelles plus positives dans deux mois. Si tu changes de demeure, prie M^e. de Vivens de t'envoyer les lettres qui te parviendront, et indique-moi ton adresse. J'espère que tu viendras bientôt tirer parti de ton Anglais. Tout homme qui a des terres ici devient citoyen et a droit de donner sa voix pour envoyer son représentant ou député à l'Assemblée Générale, et celui d'être élu soi-même s'il en est digne. Adieu, mon bon ami. Tout à toi. * * * * * Cette lettre est mise abord du brig Le Comte du Duras, Capitaine Fournier, allant à Bordeaux, et adressée à Messrs. Archer, Baix & Cie. 12 novembre, 1783. Mon bon ami, le sus-dit vaisseau a fait naufrage à l'entrée de la Delaware. L'équipage s'est sauvé et ma lettre m'est revenue. Je me porte toujours bien. Je pars demain matin pour Virginie d'où je reviendrai dans deux mois. Adresse toujours à Philadelphie. Je suis entré pour 1/4 dans une spéculation de 120,000 acres de terre en Virginie. Cela de toi à moi. Tout à toi. * * * * * Clearly young Gallatin now thought that he had found the destiny so long imagined, and, modest as his sketch of their future prospects may appear, his acts show that the original scheme of bettering his fortune was by no means abandoned, but rather entertained on a vaster scale. He had solved the difficulty of speculating without capital and without debt; for certainly that modest retreat which he imagined for himself, Serre, and Badollet, did not require operations on the scale of a hundred thousand acres, and the element of speculation must have absorbed four-fifths of his thoughts. At this time, indeed, and for many years afterwards, all America was engaged in these speculations. General Washington was deep in them, and, as will be seen, jostled against Gallatin in the very act of opening up his lands. Robert Morris was a wild speculator, and closed his public career a bankrupt and in prison for that reason. Promising as the prospect was and certain as the ultimate profits seemed, it would be difficult to prove that any one was ever really enriched by these investments; certainly in Gallatin's case, as in the case of Washington and Robert Morris, the result was trouble, disappointment, and loss. It was for Gallatin something worse; it was another false start.