parliament might excite, and committing them with the nation.  The Notables are now in session.  The government had manifestly discovered a disposition that the Tiers-Etat, or Commons, should have as many representatives in the States General, as the Nobility and Clergy together:  but five Bureaux of the Notables have voted by very great majorities, that they should have only an equal number with each of the other orders singly.  One bureau, by a majority of a single voice, had agreed to give the Commons the double number of representatives.  This is the first symptom of a decided combination between the Nobility and Clergy, and will necessarily throw the people into the scale of the King.  It is doubted, whether the States can be called so early as January, though the government, urged by the want of money, is for pressing the convocation.  It is still more uncertain what the States will do when they meet:  there are three objects which they may attain, probably without opposition from the court; 1.  A periodical meeting of the States; 2. their exclusive right of taxation; 3. the right of en-registering laws and proposing amendments to them, as now exercised by the parliaments.  This would lead, as it did in England, to the right of originating laws.  The parliament would, by the last measure, be reduced to a mere judiciary body, and would probably oppose it.  But against the King and nation their opposition could not succeed.  If the States stop here, for the present moment, all will probably end well, and they may, in future sessions, obtain a suppression of lettres de cachet, a free press, a civil list, and other valuable mollifications of their government.  But it is to be feared, that an impatience to rectify every thing at once, which prevails in some minds, may terrify the court, and lead them to appeal to force, and to depend on that alone.

Before this can reach you, you will probably have heard of an Arret, passed the 28th of September, for prohibiting the introduction of foreign whale-oils, without exception.  The English had glutted the markets of this country with their oils:  it was proposed to exclude them, and an Arret was drawn, with an exception for us:  in the last stage of the Arret, the exception was struck out, without my having any warning, or even suspicion of this.  I suspect this stroke came from the Count de la Luzerne, minister of marine; but I cannot affirm it positively.  As soon as I was apprized of this, which was several days after it passed (because it was kept secret till published in their seaports), I wrote to the Count de Montmorin a letter, of which the enclosed is a copy, and had conferences on the subject, from time to time, with him and the other ministers.  I found them prepossessed by the partial information of their Dunkirk fishermen; and therefore thought it necessary to give them a view of the whole subject in writing, which I did, in the piece, of