I am honored with your Excellency’s letter by the last packet, and thank you for the information it contains on the communication between the Cayahoga and Big Beaver.  I have ever considered the opening a canal between those two water courses, as the most important work in that line, which the state of Virginia could undertake.  If will infallibly turn through the Potomac all the commerce of Lake Erie, and the country west of that, except what may pass down the Mississippi; and it is important that it be soon done, lest that commerce should, in the mean time, get established in another channel.  Having, in the spring of the last year, taken a journey through the southern parts of France, and particularly examined the canal of Languedoc, through its whole course, I take the liberty of sending you the notes I made on the spot, as you may find in them something perhaps, which may be turned to account, some time or other, in the prosecution of the Potomac canal.  Being merely a copy from my travelling notes, they are undigested and imperfect, but may still, perhaps, give hints capable of improvement in your mind.

The affairs of Europe are in such a state still, that it is impossible to say what form they will take ultimately.  France and Prussia, viewing the Emperor as their most dangerous and common enemy, had heretofore seen their common safety as depending on a strict connection with one another.  This had naturally inclined the Emperor to the scale of England, and the Empress also, as having views in common with the Emperor, against the Turks.  But these two powers would, at any time, have gladly quitted England, to coalesce with France, as being the power which they met every where, opposed as a barrier to all their schemes of aggrandizement.  When, therefore, the present King of Prussia took the eccentric measure of bidding defiance to France, by placing his brother-in-law on the throne of Holland, the two empires immediately seized the occasion of soliciting an alliance with France.  The motives for this appeared so plausible, that it was believed the latter would have entered into this alliance, and that thus the whole political system of Europe would have taken a new form.  What has prevented this court from coming into it, we know not.  The unmeasurable ambition of the Emperor, and his total want of moral principle and honor, are suspected.  A great share of Turkey, the recovery of Silesia, the consolidation of his dominions by the Bavarian exchange, the liberties of the Germanic body, all occupy his mind together; and his head is not well enough organized, to pursue so much only of all this, as is practicable.  Still it was thought that France might safely have coalesced with these powers, because Russia and herself holding close together, as their interests would naturally dictate, the Emperor could never stir, but with their permission.  France seems, however, to have taken the worst of all parties, that is, none at all.