country.  It is an object of two hundred and fifty thousand guineas a year.  While passing through the towns of Turin, Milan, and Genoa, I satisfied myself of the practicability of introducing our whale-oil for their consumption, and suppose it would be equally so in the other great cities of that country.  I was sorry that I was not authorized to set the matter on foot.  The merchants with whom I chose to ask conferences met me freely, and communicated fully, knowing I was in a public character.  I could, however, only prepare a disposition to meet our oil-merchants.  On the article of tobacco, I was more in possession of my ground; and put matters into a train for inducing their government to draw their tobaccos directly from the United States, and not, as heretofore, from Great Britain.  I am now occupied with the new ministry here, to put the concluding hand to the new regulations for our commerce with this country, announced in the letter of Monsieur de Calonne, which I sent you last fall.  I am in hopes, in addition to those, to obtain a suppression of the duties on tar, pitch, and turpentine, and, an extension of the privileges of American whale oil, to their fish oils in general.  I find that the quantity of cod-fish oil brought to L’Orient is considerable.  This being got off hand (which will be in a few days), the chicaneries and vexations of the Farmers on the article of tobacco, and their elusions of the order of Bernis, call for the next attention.  I have reasons to hope good dispositions in the new ministry towards our commerce with this country.  Besides endeavoring, on all occasions, to multiply the points of contact and connection with this country, which I consider as our surest mainstay under every event, I have had it much at heart to remove from between us every subject of misunderstanding or irritation.  Our debts to the King, to the Officers, and the Farmers, are of this description.  The having complied with no part of our engagements in these, draws on us a great deal of censure, and occasioned a language in the Assemblee des Notables, very likely to produce dissatisfaction between us.  Dumas being on the spot in Holland, I had asked of him some time ago, in confidence, his opinion of the practicability of transferring these debts from France to Holland, and communicated his answer to Congress, pressing them to get you to go over to Holland, and try to effect this business.  Your knowledge of the ground, and former successes, occasioned me to take this liberty without consulting you, because I was sure you would not weigh your personal trouble against public good.  I have had no answer from Congress; but hearing of your journey to Holland, have hoped that some money operation had led you there.  If it related to the debts of this country, I would ask a communication of what you think yourself at liberty to communicate, as it might change the form of my answers to the eternal applications I receive.  The debt to the officers of France, carries an interest of about two thousand guineas, so we may suppose its principal is between thirty and forty thousand.  This makes more noise against us, than all our other debts put together.