I am, with very sincere esteem and attachment, Dear Sir, your most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XXXIX.—­TO JOHN JAY, January 9, 1787

TO JOHN JAY.

Paris, January 9, 1787.

Sir,

My last, of December the 31st, acknowledged the receipt of yours of October the 12th, as the present does those of October the 3rd, 9th, and 27th, together with the resolution of Congress of October the 16th, on the claim of Schweighaeuser.  I will proceed in this business on the return of Mr. Barclay, who being fully acquainted with all the circumstances, will be enabled to give me that information, the want of which might lead me to do wrong on the one side or the other.

Information of the signature of the treaty with Morocco has been long on its passage to you.  I will beg leave to recur to dates, that you may see that no part of it has been derived from me.  The first notice I had of it, was in a letter from Mr. Barclay, dated, Daralbeyda, August the 11th.  I received this on the 13th of September.  No secure conveyance offered till the 26th of the same month, being thirteen days after my receipt of it.  In my letter of that date, which went by the way of London, I had the honor to enclose you a copy of Mr. Barclay’s letter.  The conveyance of the treaty itself is suffering a delay here at present, which all my anxiety cannot prevent.  Colonel Franks’ baggage, which came by water from Cadiz to Rouen, has been long and hourly expected.  The moment it arrives, he will set out to London, to have duplicates of the treaty signed by Mr. Adams, and from thence he will proceed to New York.

The Chevalier del Pinto, who treated with us on behalf of Portugal, being resident at London, I have presumed that causes of the delay of that treaty had been made known to Mr. Adams, and by him communicated to you.  I will write to him by Colonel Franks, in order that you may be answered on that subject.

The publication of the enclosed extract from my letter of May the 27th, 1786, will, I fear, have very mischievous effects.  It will tend to draw on the Count de Vergennes the formidable phalanx of the Farms; to prevent his committing himself to me in any conversation which he does not mean for the public papers; to inspire the same diffidence into all other ministers, with whom I might have to transact business; to defeat the little hope, if any hope existed, of getting rid of the Farm on the article of tobacco; and to damp that freedom of, communication which the resolution of Congress of May the 3rd, 1784, was intended to re-establish.  Observing by the proceedings of Congress, that they are about to establish a coinage, I think it my duty to inform them, that a Swiss, of the name of Drost, established here, has invented a method of striking the two faces and the edge of a coin, at one stroke.  By this, and other simplifications