even those relating to America.  On our side, there have been certainly no preparations for war against Spain; nor have I heard of any on their part, but in the London newspapers.  As to the progress of the negotiation, I know nothing of it but from you; having never had a letter from Mr. Carmichael on the subject.  Our best newspapers are sent you from my office with scrupulous exactness, by every vessel sailing to Havre or any other convenient port of France.  On these I rely for giving you information of all the facts possessed by the public; and as to those not possessed by them, I think there has not been a single instance of my leaving you uninformed of any of them which related to the matters under your charge.  In Freneau’s paper of the 21st instant, you will see a small essay on population and emigration, which I think it would be well if the news-writers of Paris would translate and insert in their papers.  The sentiments are too just not to make impression.

Some proceedings of the assembly of St. Domingo have lately taken place, which it is necessary for me to state to you exactly, that you may be able to do the same to M. de Montmorin.  When the insurrection of their negroes assumed a very threatening appearance, the Assembly sent a deputy here to ask assistance of military stores and provisions.  He addressed himself to M. de Ternant, who (the President being then in Virginia, as I was also) applied to the Secretaries of the Treasury and War.  They furnished one thousand stand of arms, other military stores, and placed forty thousand dollars in the treasury, subject to the order of M. de Ternant, to be laid out in provisions, or otherwise, as he should think best.  He sent the arms and other military stores; but the want of provisions did not seem so instantaneous as to render it necessary, in his opinion, to send any at that time.  Before the vessel arrived in St. Domingo, the Assembly, further urged by the appearance of danger, sent two deputies more, with larger demands; viz. eight thousand fusils and bayonets, two thousand musquetoons, three thousand pistols, three thousand sabres, twenty-four thousand barrels of flour, four hundred thousand livres’ worth of Indian meal, rice, pease, and hay, and a large quantity of plank, &c. to repair the buildings destroyed.  They applied to M. de Ternant, and then with his consent to me; he and I having previously had a conversation on the subject.  They proposed to me, first, that we should supply those wants from the money we owed France; or secondly, from the bills of exchange which they were authorized to draw on a particular fund in France; or thirdly, that we would guaranty their bills, in which case they could dispose of them to merchants, and buy the necessaries themselves.  I convinced them the two latter alternatives were beyond the powers of the executive, and the first could only be done with the consent of the minister of France.  In the course of our conversation,