the country of Piedmont.  I passed through the rice-fields of the Vercellese and Milanese, about sixty miles, and returned from thence last night, having found that the machine is absolutely the same as ours, and of course, that we need not listen more to that suggestion.  It is a difference in the species of grain; of which the government of Turin is so sensible, that, as I was informed, they prohibit the exportation of rough rice, on pain of death.  I have taken measures, however, which I think will not fail, for obtaining a quantity of it, and I bought on the spot a small parcel, which I have with me.  As further details on this subject to Congress would be misplaced, I propose, on my return to Paris, to communicate them, and send the rice to the society at Charleston for promoting agriculture, supposing that they will be best able to try the experiment of cultivating the rice of this quality, and to communicate the species to the two States of South Carolina and Georgia, if they find it answers.  I thought the staple of these two States was entitled to this attention, and that it must be desirable to them, to be able to furnish rice of the two qualities demanded in Europe, especially, as the greater consumption is in the forms for which the Lombardy quality is preferred.  The mass of our countrymen being interested in agriculture, I hope I do not err in supposing, that in a time of profound peace, as the present, to enable them to adapt their productions to the market, to point out markets for them, and endeavor to obtain favorable terms of reception, is within the line of my duty.

My journey into this part of the country has procured me information, which I will take the liberty of communicating to Congress.  In October last, I received a letter, dated Montpelier, October the 2nd, 1786, announcing to me that the writer was a foreigner, who had a matter of very great consequence to communicate to me, and desired I would indicate the channel through which it might pass safely.  I did so.

I received soon after, a letter in the following words, omitting only the formal parts. [A translation of it is here given.]

’I am a native of Brazil.  You are not ignorant of the frightful slavery under which my country groans.  This continually becomes more insupportable, since the epoch of your glorious independence; for the cruel Portuguese omit nothing which can render our condition more wretched, from an apprehension that we may follow your example.  The conviction, that these usurpers against the laws of nature and humanity only meditate new oppressions, has decided us to follow the guiding light which you have held out to us, to break our chains, to revive our almost expiring liberty, which is nearly overwhelmed by that force, which is the sole foundation of the authority that Europeans exercise over America.  But it is necessary that some power should extend assistance to the Brazilians, since Spain would certainly