I have no doubt, you permit access to the letters of your foreign ministers, by persons only of the most perfect trust. It is in the European system, to bribe the clerks high, in order to obtain copies of interesting papers. I am sure you are equally attentive to the conveyance of your letters to us, as you know that all are opened that pass through any post-office of Europe. Your letters which come by the packet, if put into the mail at New York, or into the post-office at Havre, wear proofs that they have been opened. The passenger to whom they are confided, should be cautioned always to keep them in his own hands, till he can deliver them personally in Paris. I have the honor to be, with very sincere esteem and respect, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant. TO THE COUNT DE MONTMORIN. PARIS, November 6, 1787. SIR,--I take the liberty of asking your Excellency's perusal of the enclosed case of an American hostage, confined in the prisons of Dunkirk. His continuance there seems to be useless, and yet endless. Not knowing how far the government can interfere for his relief, as it is a case wherein private property is concerned, I do not presume to ask his liberation absolutely; but I will solicit from your Excellency such measures in his behalf, as the laws and usages of the country may permit. The Comptroller General having been so good as to explain to me in a conversation that he wished to know what duties were levied in England on American whale oil, I have had the honor of informing him by letter, that the ancient duties on that article are seventeen pounds, six shillings and six pence, sterling, the ton, and that some late additional duties make them amount to about eighteen pounds sterling. That the common whale oil sells there but for about twenty pounds sterling, the ton, and of course the duty amounts to a prohibition. This duty was originally laid on all foreign fish oil, with a view to favor the British and American fisheries. When we became independent, and, of course, foreign to great Britain, we became subject to the foreign duty. No duty, therefore, which France may think proper to lay on this article, can drive it to the English market. It could only oblige the inhabitants of Nantucket to abandon their fishery. But the poverty of their soil offering them no other resource, they must quit their country, and either establish themselves in Nova Scotia, where, as British fishermen, they may participate of the British premium, in addition to the ordinary price of their whale oil, or they must accept the conditions which this government offers, for the establishment they have proposed at Dunkirk. Your Excellency will judge, what conditions may counterbalance, in their minds, the circumstances of the vicinity of Nova Scotia, sameness of language, laws, religion, customs and kindred. Remaining in their native country, to which they are most