TO C. W. F. DUMAS.
Passy, October 2d, 1780.
Dear Sir,
I received duly your several letters of the 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 21st of September. I am much pleased with the intelligence you sent me, and with the papers you have had printed.
Mr Searle is a military officer in the Pennsylvania troops, and a member of Congress. He has some commission to execute for that province, but none that I know of from Congress. He has an open letter for you from Mr Lovell, which he has shown me. It is full of expressions of his esteem; and I understand from Mr Searle, that you stand exceedingly well with the Committee and with the Congress in general. I am sorry to see any marks of uneasiness and apprehension in your letters. M. Chaumont tells me, that you want some assurance of being continued. The Congress itself is changeable at the pleasure of their electors, and none of their servants have, or can have, any such assurance. If, therefore, anything better for you, and more substantial should offer, nobody can blame you for accepting it, however satisfied they may be with your services. But as to the continuance of what you may enjoy, or of something as valuable in the service of the Congress, I think you may make yourself easy, for your appointment seems more likely to be increased than diminished, though it does not belong to me to promise anything.
Mr Laurens was to sail three days after Mr Searle, who begins to fear he must be lost, as it was a small vessel he intended to embark in. He was bound directly to Holland.
I enclose some extracts of letters from two French officers of distinction in the army of M. de Rochambeau, which are pleasing, as they mark the good intelligence that subsists between the troops, contrary to the reports circulated by the English.
They will do perhaps for your Leyden Gazette.