It is my intention during the short time that I expect to remain here, to send you from time to time such new publications in the french language, as may fall in my way, and appear to promise entertainment or matter of interesting meditation for you.

With this design I purpose to combine another, which I am at least desirous to render of some utility to my Country— The translation from Juvenal which I sent you last summer, was I presume inserted in the Port Folio with your approbation— As the professed object of that periodical print is to excite the love and promote the cultivation of literature in our country, its success has my warmest good wishes, and I have promised to furnish such contributions as my leisure will permit, for its support.

With the classic authors and the successive valuable or fashionable productions of the English language, many of our fellow-citizens are familiar— Many of them are thorough scholars in the languages of antiquity; but I am afraid it is no injustice to them to affirm that their ignorance of the literary treasures of other nations and other modern languages than the English, is profound, and almost universal— And as it is one of the characteristic features of the human mind to depretiate what it does not know, we are too apt to undervalue all other literature than our own, and to consider the other nations and languages of Europe, as at an immeasurable distance behind those with which we are principally acquainted.

The design to which I allude, is therefore to contribute as far as I am able in promoting the knowledge of foreign literature, and as one of the means of effecting this, to present such of its publications as I shall have occasion to send you, to the consideration of the public, in a sort of review, containing a summary of the reflections which may occur to my own mind upon the perusal of them.— This I mean to do in the form of letters to you— But as my meditations upon books, will be of very little use or amusement to you, when you have the books themselves, I shall only send press copies of these critical letters to yourself, and shall enclose the originals to my brother, for publication in the Port-Folio, provided the editor should think them worth publishing.— They will doubtless often perhaps always appear to you superficial, and undigested, in comparison, with what the works I shall send you will suggest to the 30 compass and activity of your own mind— But your indulgence will consider that the time which I can devote to this occupation is very limited; that accuracy can only be the result of delay, and that depth and extent of reflection must be proportioned to the powers of the reflecting mind— Others might undoubtedly better execute the project I have in view, but being convinced that the project itself tends to the honour and advantage of my Country, I please myself with the hope that others will improve upon it, and that a real and important benefit will eventually result from it to my native land.

I remain ever affectionately your’s

I now enclose together with a press copy of my last letter to you, the original of one addressed to your father, containing observations upon a french pamphlet, which I have sent him. This letter however is not to be sent to him, but to be published in the Port Folio, if the Editor thinks proper. Of course, without indicating either the writer, or the person, to whom it is addressed— My design is to follow it with others of a like nature, which the Editor of the Port Folio may publish under the discription of “Letters; from an American abroad upon various topics of foreign literature,” or some such title—1 I shall send the originals to you & only press copies to your father; my motives for which I have mentioned in a letter to him this day, & hope they will meet his approbation.

I have a piece of unpleasant news to communicate. Dr Brown’s family are in deep affliction. His second daughter, Bell, died on the evening of last Monday the 23rd: instt: after an illness of a very few days; the shock was indeed almost as sudden & unexpected as it violent.2 They scarcely apprehended danger, untill it was irremovable, & her mother, who went to bed at night with the flattering hope, that she was fast recovering, rose in the morning to the agonizing information, that she was no more. We sincerely share in the 31 sorrows of this amiable family, upon a calamity so distressing, & I am persuaded, that you will be equally sensible to it.

I am in daily expectation of receiving your promised letter of the beginning of Feby:—3 By the english newspapers we have accounts from New York to the 9th: of that month. They mention that the Convention with France had at length been ratified by our Senate with the omission of the second article.4 Whether the french government will acquiesce in this, or not, I am unable to say. But at any rate I have little hopes, that the omission will be of any service to us.

We are upon the point of losing here the family of the English Minister, Lord Carysfort. The Prussian regiments are already under orders to march & take possession of Hanover. They will likewise occupy the cities of Hamburg, & Bremen— My wife will meet with a great loss in Lady Carysfort, who has been to her as a mother. She is a sister of Lord Grenville, & a woman of a remarkable fine understanding.5

You will have heard before you receive this of the declaration of war between Spain & Portugal, & that a suspension of hostilities has been concluded between France & the king of the two Sicilies; by virtue of which, the Neapolitan ports are to be shut against the English—6