Dear Sir,

My public letters to you have been of the 28th of March, the 6th and
30th of April. Yours, which remain to be acknowledged, are of March the
9th, 17th, 29th, April the 4th, 12th, 23rd, and May the 1st; being from
No. 21 to 28, inclusive, except No. 23, which had come to hand before. I
will state to you the dates of all your letters received by me, with the
times they have been received, and length of their passage.

*****

You will perceive that they average eleven weeks and a half; that the
quickest are of nine weeks, and the longest are of near eighteen weeks
coming. Our information through the English papers is of about five
or six weeks, and we generally remain as long afterwards in anxious
suspense, till the receipt of your letters may enable us to decide what
articles of those papers have been true. As these come principally
by the English packet, I will take the liberty of asking you to write
always by that packet, giving a full detail of such events as may be
communicated through that channel; and indeed most may. If your letters
leave Paris nine or ten days before the sailing of the packet, we shall
be able to decide, on the moment, on the facts true or false, with which
she comes charged. For communications of a secret nature, you will avail
yourself of other conveyances, and you will be enabled to judge
which are best, by the preceding statement. News from Europe is very
interesting at this moment, when it is so doubtful whether a war will
take place between our two neighbors.

Congress have passed an act for establishing the seat of government
at Georgetown, from the year 1800, and in the mean time to remove to