Before I left Copenhagen, I wrote to Mr. Amoureux, merchant at L'Orient, to dispose of some articles of mine in his hands, and remit you the amount. I hope he has done it, and that his remittance may be sufficient to pay Mr. Houdon, and the expense of striking the medal with which I am honoured by the United States. But lest this should not turn out as I expect, I have directed Dr. Bancroft to pay any draft of yours on him for my account, as far as four or five thousand livres. I shall want four gold medals as soon as the dies are finished. I must present one to the United States, another to the King of France, and I cannot do less than offer one to the Empress. As you will keep the dies for me, it is my intention to have some more gold medals struck; therefore I beg you, in the meantime, not to permit the striking of a single silver or copper medal. I send enclosed an extract from my journal on my expedition from France to Holland, in the year 1779, for the information of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. I trust, at the same time, more to your judgment than to theirs. There is a medallist who executed three medals for me in wax, one of them is the battle between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis. The position of the two ships is not much amiss; but the necessary figures are much too near the principal objects; and he has placed them to windward, instead of being as they really were, to leeward of the Bonhomme Richard and Serapis. I do not at this moment recollect the medallist's name, but he lives on the 3d or 4th stage, at a marble cutter's almost opposite, but a little higher than your former house, Cul-de-sac Rue Taitbout, and may be easily found. It would be of use to see the medal he has made, although it is by no means to be copied. I have not comprehended, in the extract of my journal, the extreme difficulties I met with in Holland, nor my departure from the Texel in the Alliance, when I was forced out by the Vice Admiral Rhynst, in the face of the enemy's fleet. The critical situation I was in, in Holland, needs no explanation, and I shall not say how much the honour of the American flag depended on my conduct, or how much it affected all the belligerent powers. I shall only say it was a principal cause of the resentment of England against Holland, and the war that ensued. It is for you and the Academy to determine whether that part of my services ought to be the subject of one side of the medal. I am, with perfect esteem and attachment, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, J. P. JONES. No. 18. (p. 113) PLATES XVIII and XIX. _April 30, 1789--March 4, 1797._