TO M. DE VILLEDEUIL.

Paris, February 10, 1789.

Sir,

I take the liberty of troubling your Excellency with the following case, which I understand to be within your department.  Mr. Jay, secretary for Foreign Affairs, to the United States of America, having occasion to send me despatches of great importance, and by a courier express, confided them to a Mr. Nesbitt, who offered himself in that character.  He has delivered them safely:  but, in the moment of delivering them, explained to me his situation, which is as follows.  He was established in commerce at L’Orient, during the war.  Losses by shipwreck, by capture, and by the conclusion of the peace at a moment when he did not expect it, reduced him to bankruptcy, and he returned to America, with the consent of his creditors, to make the most of his affairs there.  He has been employed in this ever since, and now wishing to see his creditors, and to consult them on their mutual interests, he availed himself of Mr. Jay’s demand for a courier, to come under the safe conduct of that character to Paris, where he flattered himself he might obtain that of your Excellency, for the purpose of seeing his creditors, settling, and arranging with them.  He thinks a twelvemonth will be necessary for this.  Understanding that it is not unusual to grant safe conducts in such cases, and persuaded it will be for the benefit of his creditors, I take the liberty of enclosing his memoir to your Excellency, and of soliciting your favorable attention to it, assured that it will not be denied him, if it be consistent with the established usage; and if inadmissible, praying that your Excellency will have the goodness to give me as early an answer as the other arduous occupations in which you are engaged, will admit, in order that he may know whether he may see his creditors, or must return without.  I am encouraged to trouble your Excellency with this application, by the goodness with which you have been pleased to attend to our interests on former occasions, and by the desire of availing myself of every occasion of proffering to you the homage of those sentiments of attachment and respect, with which I have the honor to be your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXV.—­TO MR. CARNES, February 15,1789

TO MR. CARNES.

Paris, February 15,1789.

Sir,

I am now to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of January the 23rd, and February the 9th and 10th.  Your departure for America so soon, puzzles me as to the finishing the affair of Schweighaeuser and Dobree, in which I could have reposed myself on you.  It remains, that I ask you to recommend some person who may be perfectly relied on, in that business.  In fact, it is probably the only one I shall have occasion to trouble them with before my own departure for America, which I expect to take place in May; and I fix my return to Paris, in December.  While I ask your recommendation of a person to finish Dobree’s business with fidelity, I must ask your secrecy on the subject of that very business, so as not to name it at all, even to the person you shall recommend.