I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson..

LETTER CXCVIII.—­TO JOHN JAY, May 9, 1789

TO JOHN JAY.

Paris, May 9, 1789.

Sir,

Since my letter of March the 1st, by the way of Havre, and those of March the 12th and 15th, by the way of London, no opportunity of writing has occurred, till the present to London.

There are no symptoms of accommodation between the Turks and two empires, nor between Russia and Sweden.  The Emperor was, on the 16th of the last month, expected to die, certainly; he was, however, a little better when the last news came away, so that hopes were entertained of him; but it is agreed that he cannot get the better of his complaints ultimately, so that his life is not at all counted on.  The Danes profess, as yet, to do no more against Sweden than furnish their stipulated aid.  The agitation of Poland is still violent, though somewhat moderated by the late change in the demeanor of the King of Prussia.  He is much less thrasonic than he was.  This is imputed to the turn which the English politics may be rationally expected to take.  It is very difficult to get at the true state of the British King j but from the best information we can get, his madness has gone off, but he is left in a state of imbecility and melancholy.  They are going to carry him to Hanover, to see whether such a journey may relieve him.  The Queen accompanies him.  If England. should, by this accident, be reduced to inactivity, the southern countries of Europe may escape the present war.  Upon the whole, the prospect for the present year, if no unforeseen accident happens, is certain peace for the powers not already engaged, a probability that Denmark will not become a principal, and a mere possibility that Sweden and Russia may be accommodated.  The interior disputes of Sweden are so exactly detailed in the Leyden gazette, that I have nothing to add on that subject.

The revolution of this country has advanced thus far without encountering any thing which deserves to be called a difficulty.  There have been riots in a few instances, in three or four different places, in which there may have been a dozen or twenty lives lost.  The exact truth is not be got at.  A few days ago, a much more serious riot took place in this city, in which it became necessary for the troops to engage in regular action with the mob, and probably about one hundred of the latter were killed.  Accounts vary from twenty to two hundred.  They were the most abandoned banditti of Paris, and never was a riot more unprovoked and unpitied.  They began, under a pretence that a paper manufacturer had proposed in an assembly, to reduce their wages to fifteen sous a day.  They rifled his house, destroyed every thing in his magazines and shops, and were only stopped in their career of mischief,