and their practice seem opposed to the general interest of the kingdom, which would require, that this capital article should be laid open to a free exchange for the productions of this country.  So far does the spirit of simplifying their operations govern this body, that, relinquishing the advantages to be derived from a competition of sellers, they contracted some time ago with a single person (Mr. Morris) for three years’ supplies of American tobacco, to be paid for in cash.  They obliged themselves, too, expressly, to employ no other person to purchase in America, during that term.  In consequence of this, the mercantile houses of France, concerned in sending her productions to be exchanged for tobacco, cut off for three years from the hope of selling these tobaccos in France, were of necessity to abandon that commerce.  In consequence of this, too, a single individual, constituted sole purchaser of so great a proportion of the tobaccos made, had the price in his own power.  A great reduction in it took place, and that not only on the quantity he bought, but on the whole quantity made.  The loss to the States producing the article, did not go to cheapen it for their friends here.  Their price was fixed.  What was gained on their consumption, was to enrich the person purchasing it; the rest, the monopolists and merchants of other countries.  The effect of this operation was vitally felt by every farmer in America, concerned in the culture of this plant.  At the end of the year, he found he had lost a fourth or a third of his revenue; the State, the same proportion of its subjects of exchange with other nations:  the manufactures of this country, too, were either not to go there at all, or go through the channel of a new monopoly, which, freed from the control of competition in prices and qualities, was not likely to extend their consumption.  It became necessary to relieve the two countries from the fatal effects of this double monopoly.  I had the honor of addressing a letter, on the 15th day of August, 1785, to his late Excellency, the Count de Vergennes, upon this subject, a copy of which I do myself the honor herein to enclose.  The effectual mode of relief was to lay the commerce open.  But the King’s interest was also to be guarded.  A committee was appointed to take this matter into consideration; and the result was, an order to the Farmers General, that no such contract should be made again.  And to furnish such aliment as might keep that branch of commerce alive, till the expiration of the present contract, they were required to put the merchants in general on a level with Mr. Morris, for the quantity of twelve or fifteen thousand hogsheads a year.  That this relief, too, might not be intercepted from the merchants of the two suffering nations, by those of a neighboring one, and that the transportation of so bulky an article might go to nourish their own shipping, no tobaccos were to be counted of this purchase, but those brought in French or American vessels.