We are impatient to learn the progress and prospect of the Algerine business.  Do not let it languish a moment, nor leave us a moment uninformed of any thing relative to it.  It is in truth a tender business, and more felt as such in this, than in any other country.  The suppression of the Farms of tobacco, and the free importation of our salted provisions, will merit all your attention.  They are both of them objects of first rate importance.

The following appointments of Consuls have taken place.

*****

Their jurisdictions, in general, extend to all places within the same allegiance, which are nearer to them than to the residence of any other Consul or Vice-Consul.  As yet, only their commissions have been made out.  General instructions await the passage of a bill now depending.  Mr. La Forest, at this place, remarked our appointment of Consuls in the French islands.  In the first project of a convention proposed on the part of France, the expressions reached expressly to the kingdom of France only.  I objected to this in writing, as being narrower than the twenty-ninth article of the treaty of amity, which was the basis of the consular convention, and which had granted the appointment of Consuls and Vice-Consuls, in their respective ‘States and ports,’ generally, and without restriction.  On this, the word ‘France’ was struck out, and the ‘dominions of the M. C. K.’ inserted every where.  See the fifth, ninth, twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth articles particularly, of the copy of the draughts of 1784 and 1788, as I had them printed side by side.  The object of this alteration was, the appointment of Consuls in the free ports allowed us in the French West Indies, where our commerce has greater need of protection than any where.  I mention these things, that you may be prepared, should any thing be said to you on the subject.  I am persuaded the appointment will contribute eminently to the preservation of harmony between us.  These Consuls will be able to prevent the misunderstandings which arise frequently now between the officers there and our traders, and which are doubtless much exaggerated and misrepresented to us by the latter.

I duly received the copy you were so kind as to send me of the Bishop of Autun’s proposition, on the subject of weights and measures.  It happened to arrive in the moment I was about giving in to Congress a report on the same subject, which they had referred to me.  In consequence of the Bishop of Autun’s proposition, I made an alteration in my report, substituting forty-five degrees instead of thirty-eight degrees, which I had at first proposed as a standard latitude.  I send you a copy of my report for the Bishop, and another for M. Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences.  By taking the second pendulum or rod of the same latitude for the basis of our measures, it will at least furnish a common measure to which both our systems will refer, provided our experiments on the pendulum or rod of forty-five degrees should yield exactly the same result with theirs.