sician who had lived long in Russia. Much conversation. Putrid fevers common in Russia, and in winter much more than in summer; therefore supposed to be owing to their hot rooms. In a gentleman's house there are sometimes one hundred domestics; these have not beds, but sleep twenty or thirty in a close room warmed by a stove, lying on the floor and on benches. The stoves are heated by wood. As soon as it is burnt to coals, the chimney is stopped to prevent the escape of hot and entry of cold air. So they breathe the same air over and over again all night. These fevers he cured by wrapping the patient in linen wet with vinegar, and making them breathe the vapor of vinegar thrown on hot bricks. The Russians have the art of distilling spirit from milk. To prepare it for distillation it must, when beginning to sour, be kept in continual motion or agitation for twelve hours; it then becomes a uniform vinous liquor, the cream, curd, and aqueous part or whey, all intimately mixed. Excellent in this state for restoring emaciated bodies. This operation on milk was discovered long since by the Tartars, who in their rambling life often carry milk in leather bags on their horses, and the motion produced the effect. It may be tried with us by attaching a large keg of milk to some part of one of our mills.

July 6th. Directed Temple Franklin, who goes to court to-day, to mention three things to the minister. The main levée of the arrested goods, the port of L'Orient, and the consular convention ; which he did with effect. The port is fixed, and the convention preparing. Hear that Gottenburg is to be a free port for France, where they may assemble northern stores, &c.

Mr. Hammond came and dined with me. He acquaints me, from Mr. Hartley, that no instructions are yet come from England. July 7th. A very hot day. Received a visit from the secretary of the king of Sweden, M. Franke, accompanied by the secretary of the embassy.

July 8th.-M. Franke dines with me, in company with M. de Helvétius, Abbé de la Roche, M. Cabanis, and an American captain. The king of Sweden does not go to England.

July 10th. Mr. Grand came to propose my dining with the Swedish court at his house, which is next door, and I consented. While he was with me, the consul came. We talked about the Barbary powers; they are four, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. He informed me that Salee, the principal port belonging to the Emperor of Morocco, had formerly been famous for corsairs. That this prince had discouraged them, and in 1768 published an

edict declaring himself in peace with all the world, and forbade their cruising any more, appointing him consul for those Christian states who had none in his country. That Denmark pays him 25,000 piastres fortes yearly, in money; Sweden is engaged to send an ambassador every two years with presents; and the other powers buy their peace in the same manner, except Spain and the Italian states, with whom they have constant war. That he is consul for Sardinia and Prussia, for whom he procured treaties of peace. That he proposed a peace for Russia; but that, the Emperor having heard that Russia was going to war with his brother, the Grand Seignior, he refused it.

M. Audibert Caille, the consul, thinks it shameful for Christendom to pay tribute to such canaille, and proposes two ways of reducing the barbarians to peace with all Europe, and obliging them to quit their piratical practices. They have need of many articles from Europe, and of a vent for their superfluous commodities. If therefore all Europe would agree to refuse any commerce with them but on condition of their quitting piracy, and such an agreement could be faithfully observed on our part, it would have its effect upon them. But, if any one power would continue the trade with them, it would defeat the whole. There was another method he had projected, and communicated in a memorial to the court here, by M. de Rayneval; which was, that France should undertake to suppress their piracies and give peace to all Europe, by means of its influence with the Porte. For, all the people of these states being obliged by their religion to go at times in caravans to Mecca, and to pass through the Grand Seignior's dominions, who gives them escorts of troops through the desert, to prevent their being plundered and perhaps massacred by the Arabs, he could refuse them passage and protection but on condition of their living peaceably with the Europeans, &c. He spoke of Montgomery's transaction, and of Crocco, who, he understands, was authorized by the court. The barbarians, he observed, having no commercial ships. at sea, had vastly the advantage of the Europeans; for one could not make reprisals on their trade. And it has long been my opinion, that, if the European nations, who are powerful at sea, were to make war upon us Americans, it would be better for us to renounce commerce in our own bottoms, and convert them all into cruisers. Other nations would furnish us with what we wanted, and take off our produce. He promised me a note of the commerce of Barbary, and we are to see each other again, as he is to stay here a month.

Dined at Mr. Grand's, with the Swedish gentlemen. They were M. Rosenstein, secretary of the embassy, and ,with whom I had a good deal of conversation relating to the commerce possible between our two countries. I found they had seen at Rome Charles Stuart, the Pretender. They spoke of his situation as very hard; that France, who had formerly allowed him a pension, had withdrawn it, and that he sometimes almost wanted bread!

July 11th.-M. Walterstrof called. He hears that the agreement with Sweden respecting the port of Gottenburg is not likely to be concluded; that Sweden wanted an island in the West Indies in exchange. I think she is better without it.

July 13th. MM. Mirabeau and Champfort came and read their translation of (American) Mr. Burke's pamphlet against the Cincinnati, which they have much enlarged, intending it as a covered satire against noblesse in general. It is well done. There are also remarks on the last letter of General Washington on that subject. They say General Washington missed a beau moment, when he accepted to be of that society (which some affect to call an order). The same of the Marquis de la Fayette.

July 14th. Mr. Hammond calls to acquaint me, that Mr. Hartley is still without any instructions relating to the treaty of commerce; and supposes it occasioned by their attention to the India bill. I said to him, "Your court and this seem to be waiting for one another, with respect to the American trade with your respective islands. You are both afraid of doing too much for us, and yet each wishes to do a little more than the other. You had better have accepted our generous proposal at first, to put us both on the same footing of free intercourse that existed before the war. You will make some narrow regulations, and then France will go beyond you in generosity. You never see your follies till too late to mend them." He said, Lord Sheffield was continually exasperating the Parliament against America. He had lately been publishing an account of loyalists murdered there, &c. Probably invented.

Thursday, July 15th. -The Duke de Chartres's balloon went off this morning from St. Cloud, himself and three others in the gallery. It was foggy, and they were soon out of sight. But, the machine being disordered, so that the trap or valve could not be opened to let out the expanding air, and fearing that the balloon would burst, they cut a hole in it, which ripped larger, and they

* A pamphlet by Edanus Burke, of South Carolina, entitled "Considerations upon the Order of the Cincinnati."- EDITOR.

fell rapidly, but received no harm. They had been a vast height, met with a cloud of snow, and a tornado, which frightened them.

Friday, 16th. Received a letter from two young gentlemen in London, who are come from America for ecclesiastical orders, and complain that they have been delayed there a year, and that the Archbishop will not permit them to be ordained unless they will take the oath of allegiance; and desiring to know if they may be ordained here. Inquired, and learned that, if ordained here, they must vow obedience to the Archbishop of Paris. Directed my grandson to ask the Nuncio, if their bishop in America might not be instructed to do it literally?

Saturday, 17th.-The Nuncio says the thing is impossible, unless the gentlemen become Roman Catholics. Wrote them an an

swer.

Sunday, 18th.- A good abbé brings me a large manuscript containing a scheme of reformation of all churches and states, religion, commerce, laws, &c., which he has planned in his closet, without much knowledge of the world. I have promised to look it over, and he is to call next Thursday. It is amazing the number of legislators that kindly bring me new plans for governing the United States.

Monday, July 19th. Had the Americans at dinner, with Mr. White and Mr. Arbuthnot from England. The latter was an officer at Gibraltar during the late siege. He says the Spaniards might have taken it; and that it is now a place of no value to England. That its supposed use as a port for a fleet, to prevent the junction of the Brest and Toulon squadrons, is chimerical. That while the Spaniards are in possession of Algeziras, they can with their gun-boats, in the use of which they are grown very expert, make it impossible for any fleet to lie there.

Tuesday, 20th. My grandson went to court. No news there, except that the Spanish fleet against Algiers is sailed. Receive only one American letter by the packet, which is from the College of Rhode Island, desiring me to solicit benefactions of the King, which I cannot do, for reasons which I shall give them. It is inconceivable why I have no letters from Congress. The treaties with Denmark, Portugal, &c., all neglected! Mr. Hartley makes the same complaint. He is still without orders. Mr. Hammond called and dined with me; says Mr. Pitt begins to lose his popularity; his new taxes, and project about the navy bills, give great discontent. He has been burnt in effigy at York. His East India bill not likely to go down; and it is thought he cannot stand long. Mr. Ham74

VOL. I.

mond is a friend of Mr. Fox; whose friends, that have lost their places, are called Fox's Martyrs.

Wednesday, July 21.- Count de Haga sends his card to take leave. M. Grand tells me he has bought here my bust with that of M. D'Alembert or Diderot, to take with him to Sweden. He set out last night.

Thursday, 22d.-Lord Fitzmaurice, son of Lord Shelburne, arrives; brought me sundry letters and papers.

He thinks Mr. Pitt in danger of losing his majority in the House of Commons, though great at present; for he will not have wherewithal to pay them. I said, that governing by a Parliament which must be bribed, was employing a very expensive machine, and that the people of England would in time find out, though they had not yet, that, since the Parliament must always do the will of the minister, and be paid for doing it, and the people must find the money to pay them, it would be the same thing in effect, but much cheaper, to be governed by the minister at first hand, without a ParliaThose present seemed to think the reasoning clear. Lord Fitzmaurice appears a sensible, amiable young man.

ment.

Tuesday, 27th. - Lord Fitzmaurice called to see me. His father having requested that I would give him such instructive hints. as might be useful to him, I occasionally mentioned the old story of Demosthenes' answer to one who demanded what was the first point of oratory. Action. The second? Action. The third? Action. Which, I said, had been generally understood to mean the action of an orator with his hands, &c., in speaking; but that I thought another kind of action of more importance to an orator, who would persuade people to follow his advice, viz. such a course of action in the conduct of life, as would impress them with an opinion of his integrity as well as of his understanding; that, this opinion once established, all the difficulties, delays, and oppositions, usually occasioned by doubts and suspicions, were prevented; and such a man, though a very imperfect speaker, would almost always carry his points against the most flourishing orator, who had not the character of sincerity. To express my sense of the importance of a good private character in public affairs more strongly, I said the advantage of having it, and the disadvantage of not having it, were so great, that I even believed, if George the Third had had a bad private character, and John Wilkes a good one, the latter might have turned the former out of his kingdom. Lord Shelburne, the

* The King of Sweden.