The only question will be, how to modify the land tax. On this there may be a great diversity of sentiment. One party will want to make it a new source of patronage and expense. If this business is taken up, it will lengthen our session. We had pretty generally, till now, fixed on the beginning of May for adjournment. I shall return by my usual routes, and not by the eastern shore, on account of the advance of the season. Friendly salutations to Mrs. Madison and yourself. Adieu. TO P. CARR. PHILADELPHIA, April 12, 1798. As the instruction to our Envoys and their communications have excited a great deal of curiosity, I enclose you a copy. You will perceive that they have been assailed by swindlers, whether with or without the participation of Talleyrand is not very apparent. The known corruption of his character renders it very possible he may have intended to share largely in the £50,000 demanded. But that the Directory know anything of it is neither proved nor probable. On the contrary, when the Portuguese ambassador yielded to like attempts of swindlers, the conduct of the Directory in imprisoning him for an attempt at corruption, as well as their general conduct really magnanimous, places them above suspicion. It is pretty evident that Mr. A.'s speech is in truth the only obstacle to negotiation. That humiliating disavowals of that are demanded as a preliminary, or as a commutation for that a heavy sum of money, about a million sterling. This obstacle removed, they seem not to object to an arrangement of all differences, and even to settle and acknowledge themselves debtors for spoliations. Nor does it seem that negotiation is at an end, as the President's message says, but that it is in its commencement only. The instructions comply with the wishes expressed in debate in the May session to place France on as good footing as England, and not to make a _sine qua non_ of the indemnification for spoliation; but they declare the war in which France is engaged is not a defensive one, they reject the naturalization of French ships, that is to say the exchange of naturalization which France had formerly proposed to us, and which would lay open to us the unrestrained trade of her West Indies and all her other possessions; they declare the 10th article of the British treaty, against sequestering debts, money in the funds, bank stock, &c., to be founded in morality, and therefore of perpetual obligation, and some other heterodoxies.