and interest due on the loans of eighteen, six, and ten millions, to the end of 1792; and we shall certainly use our utmost endeavors to make punctual payments of the instalments and interest hereafter becoming exigible, and to omit no opportunity of convincing that nation how cordially we wish to serve them.  Mutual good offices, mutual affection, and similar principles of government, seem to destine the two nations for the most intimate communion:  and I cannot too much press it on you, to improve every opportunity which may occur in the changeable scenes which are passing, and to seize them as they occur, for placing our commerce with that nation and its dependencies, on the freest and most encouraging footing possible.  Besides what we have furnished publicly for the relief of St. Domingo, individual merchants of the United States have carried considerable supplies thither, which have been sometimes purchased, sometimes taken by force, and bills given by the administration of the colony on the Minister here, which have been protested for want of funds.  We have no doubt that justice will be done to these our citizens, and that without a delay which would be ruinous to them.  We wish authority to be given to the Minister of France here to pay the just demands of our citizens, out of the monies he may receive from us.

During the fluctuating state of the assignats of France, I must ask the favor of you to inform me, in every letter, of the rate of exchange between them and coin, this being necessary for the regulation of our Custom-Houses.

Congress closed its session on the 2nd instant.  You will see their acts in the newspapers forwarded to you, and the body of them shall be sent as soon as the octavo edition is printed.  We are to hold a treaty with the western Indians in the ensuing month of May, but not under very hopeful auspices.

You will perceive by the newspapers, a remarkable fall in the price of our public paper.  This is owing chiefly to the extraordinary demand for the produce of our country, and a temporary scarcity of cash to purchase it.  The merchants holding public paper are obliged to part with it at any price, to raise money.

I sent you, by the way of London, a dozen plans of the city of Washington in the federal territory, hoping you would have them displayed to public view where they would be most seen by those descriptions of men worthy and likely to be attracted to it.  Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and the sea-port towns of Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Marseilles, would be proper places to send some of them.  I trust to Mr. Taylor to forward you the newspapers by every direct occasion to France.  These are rare at all times, and especially in the winter:  and to send them through England would cost too much in postage.  To these circumstances, as well, probably, as to some miscarriages, you must ascribe the length of intervals sometimes experienced in the receipt of your papers.