SIR,--By the first conveyance which shall offer, I propose to report to the Governor of Virginia the manner in which the wish of the State, relative to the bust of the Marquis de La Fayette, has been carried into execution, and the very friendly and flattering attentions paid by Messieurs de Prevot des Marchands, et Echevins de Paris to them and to the character to which they desired to show their gratitude. It would enable us to do this with more exactness could I obtain copies of the proceedings which attended the inauguration of the bust. Your goodness, already so often manifested in this business, encourages me to endeavor to obtain these through your intervention. I do it the rather as it furnishes me an occasion very grateful to my feelings, of returning to you at the same time my sincere thanks for the zeal with which you have seconded the views of the State, the readiness with which you have condescended to give me information in the course of the proceedings, and to secure by your influence the success of these proceedings. This friendly assistance in the discharge of a public duty has added to the many motives of private esteem and attachment with which I have honor to be, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant. TO THE HONORABLE JOHN JAY. PARIS, October 22, 1786. SIR,--In a letter of Jan. 2d, I had the honor of communicating to you the measures which had been pursued here for the improvement of the commerce between the United States and France, the general view of that commerce which I had presented to the Chevalier de Vergennes. The circumstance of the renewal of the forms which had obliged me to press separately and in the first place the article of tobacco, and that which had also brought forward that of whale oil; and, in my letters of May 27th and 31st, I informed you of the result on the first of these articles. During the course of the proceedings, a committee had been established for considering the means of promoting the general commerce with America, and the M. de La Fayette was named of that committee. His influence in obtaining that establishment was valuable, but his labors and his perseverance as a member of it became infinitely more so. Immediately after the committee of Berni, of which my letter of May 27th gave an account, we thought it expedient to bring the general subject of the American commerce before the committee; and as the members were much unacquainted with the nature and value of our commercial productions, the Marquis proposed that, in a letter to him as a member, I should give as particular details of them as I could, as a ground for the committee to proceed on. I did so in the letter, a copy of which I have now the honor to enclose. The committee were well disposed, and agreed to report, not only the general measures which they thought expedient to be adopted, but the form of the letter to be written by the minister of finance to me,