and proportionably for fewer.  I will answer your draft to this amount and purpose, or you may retain it out of any monies you may propose to pay me for admiral Jones.  There is no time to lose in this negotiation, as, should Foulloy arrive there before it is closed, he will spoil the bargain.  If you should be able to recover these books, I would ask the favor of you to send them to me by the Diligence, that I may carry them back with me to America.  I make no apology for giving you this trouble.  It is for our common country, and common interest.

I am, with sincere and great esteem and attachment, Dear Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXVII.—­TO M. DE MALESHERBES, March 11, 1789

TO M. DE MALESHERBES.

Sir,

Paris, March 11, 1789.

Your zeal to promote the general good of mankind, by an interchange of useful things, and particularly in the line of agriculture, and the weight which your rank and station would give to your interposition, induce me to ask it, for the purpose of obtaining one of the species of rice which grows in Cochin-China on high lands, and which needs no other watering than the ordinary rains.  The sun and soil of Carolina are sufficiently powerful to insure the success of this plant, and Monsieur de Poivre gives such an account of its quality, as might induce the Carolinians to introduce it instead of the kind they now possess, which, requiring the whole country to be laid under water during a certain season of the year, sweeps off numbers of the inhabitants annually, with pestilential fevers.  If you would be so good as to interest yourself in the procuring for me some seeds of the dry rice of Cochin-China, you would render the most precious service to my countrymen, on whose behalf I take the liberty of asking your interposition:  very happy, at the same time, to have found such an occasion of repeating to you the homage of those sentiments of respect and esteem, with which I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CLXXXVIII.—­TO JOHN JAY, March 12, 1789

TO JOHN JAY.

Sir,

Paris, March 12, 1789.

I had the honor of addressing you, on the 1st instant, through the post.  I write the present, uncertain whether Mr. Nesbitt, the bearer of your last, will be the bearer of this, or whether it may not have to wait some other private occasion.  They have reestablished their packet-boats here, indeed; but they are to go from Bordeaux, which, being between four and five hundred miles from hence, is too far to send a courier with any letters but on the most extraordinary occasions and without a courier, they must pass through the post-office.  I shall, therefore, not make use of this mode of conveyance, but prefer sending my letters by a private hand by the way of London.  The uncertainty of finding private conveyances to London, is the principal objection to this.