December the 13th, 1792. The President called on me to see the model and drawings of some mills for sawing stone. After showing them, he in the course of a subsequent conversation asked me if there were not some good manufactories of porcelain in Germany; that he was in want of table china, and had been speaking to Mr. Shaw, who was going to the East Indies to bring him a set, but he found that it would not come till _he should no longer be in a situation to want it_. He took occasion a second time to observe that Shaw said it would be two years at least, before he could have the china here, before which time he said he should be where he should not need it. I think he asked the question about the manufactories in Germany merely to have an indirect opportunity of telling me he meant to retire, and within the limits of two years. * * * * * December the 17th. Hammond says the person is here to whom the Six Nations delivered the invitation for Simcoe to attend, who says they insisted on it, and would consider his non-attendance as an evidence that he does not wish for peace; but he says that Simcoe has not the least idea of attending; that this gentleman says we may procure in Upper Canada any quantity of provisions, which the people will salt up express during winter; and that he will return and carry our request whenever we are ready. * * * * * Thursday, December the 27th, 1792. I waited on the President on some current business. After this was over, he observed to me, that he thought it was time to endeavor to effect a stricter connection with France, and that Gouverneur Morris should be written to on this subject. He went into the circumstances of dissatisfaction between Spain and Great Britain, and us, and observed, there was no nation on whom we could rely, at all times, but France; and that, if we did not prepare in time some support, in the event of rupture with Spain and England, we might be charged with a criminal negligence. [I was much pleased with the tone of these observations. It was the very doctrine which had been my polar star, and I did not need the successes of the republican arms in France, lately announced to us, to bring me to these sentiments. For it is to be noted, that on Saturday last (the 22d) I received Mr. Short's letters of October the 9th and 12th, with the Leyden gazettes to October the 13th, giving us the first news of the retreat of the Duke of Brunswick, and the capture of Spires and Worms by Custine, and that of Nice by Anselme.] I therefore expressed to the President my cordial approbation of these ideas; told him I had meant on that day (as an opportunity of writing by the British packet would occur immediately) to take his orders for removing the suspension of payments to France, which had been imposed by my last letter to Gouverneur Morris, but was meant, as I supposed, only