no business has been yet begun, no votes as yet taken, this calculation cannot be considered as sure.  A middle proposition is talked of, to form the two privileged orders into one chamber.  It is thought more possible to bring them into it, than the Tiers-Etat.  Another proposition is, to distinguish questions, referring those of certain descriptions to a vote by persons, others to a vote by orders.  This seems to admit of endless altercation, and the Tiers-Etat manifest no respect for that, or any other modification whatever.  Were this single question accommodated, I am of opinion, there would not occur the least difficulty in the great and essential points of constitutional reformation.  But on this preliminary question the parties are so irreconcilable, that it is impossible to foresee what issue it will have.  The Tiers-Etat, as constituting the nation, may propose to do the business of the nation, either with or without the minorities in the Houses of Clergy and Nobles, which side with them.  In that case, if the King should agree to it, the majorities in those two Houses would secede, and might resist the tax-gatherers.  This would bring on a civil war.  On the other hand, the privileged orders, offering to submit to equal taxation, may propose to the King to continue the government in its former train, resuming to himself the power of taxation.  Here, the tax-gatherers might be resisted by the people.  In fine, it is but too possible, that between parties so animated, the King may incline the balance as he pleases.  Happy that he is an honest, unambitious man, who desires neither money nor power for himself; and that his most operative minister, though he has appeared to trim a little, is still, in the main, a friend to public liberty.

I mentioned to you in a former letter, the construction which our bankers at Amsterdam had put on the resolution of Congress, appropriating the last Dutch loan, by which the money for our captives would not be furnished till the end of the year 1790.  Orders from the board of treasury have now settled this question.  The interest of the next month is to be first paid, and after that, the money for the captives and foreign officers is to be furnished, before any other payment of interest.  This insures it when the next February interest becomes payable.  My representations to them, on account of the contracts I had entered into for making the medals, have produced from them the money for that object, which is lodged in the hands of Mr. Grand.

Mr. Necker, in his discourse, proposes among his bonifications of revenue, the suppression of our two free ports of Bayonne and L’Orient, which, he says, occasion a loss of six hundred thousand livres annually, to the crown, by contraband. (The speech being not yet printed, I state this only as it struck my ear when he delivered it.  If I have mistaken it, I beg you to receive this as my apology, and to consider what follows, as written on that idea only.) I have