our carrying trade as well as their own.  Our overtures of commercial arrangements have been treated with a derision, which shows their firm persuasion, that we shall never unite to suppress their commerce, or even to impede it.  I think their hostility towards us is much more deeply rooted at present, than during the war.  In the arts, the most striking thing I saw there, new, was the application of the principle of the steam-engine to grist-mills.  I saw eight pair of stones which are worked by steam, and there are to be set up thirty pair in the same house.  A hundred bushels of coal, a day, are consumed at present.  I do not know in what proportion the consumption will be increased by the additional gear.

Be so good as to present my respects to Mrs. Page and your family, to W. Lewis, F. Willis, and their families, and to accept yourself assurances of the sincere regard, with which I am, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER VIII.—­TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL

TO WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.

Paris, May 5, 1786.

Dear Sir,

A visit of two months to England has been the cause of your not hearing from me during that period.  Your letters of February the 3rd, to Mr. Adams and myself, and of February the 4th, to me, had come to hand before my departure.  While I was in London, Mr. Adams received the letters giving information of Mr. Lambe’s arrival at Algiers.  In London, we had conferences with a Tripoline ambassador, now at that court, named Abdrahaman.  He asked us thirty thousand guineas for a peace with his court, and as much for Tunis, for which he said he could answer.  What we were authorized to offer, being to this, but as a drop to a bucket, our conferences were repeated, only for the purpose of obtaining information.  If the demands of Algiers and Morocco should be proportioned to this, according to their superior power, it is easy to foresee that the United States will not buy a peace with money.  What principally led me to England was, the information that the Chevalier del Pinto, Portuguese minister at that court, had received full powers to treat with us.  I accordingly went there, and, in the course of six weeks, we arranged a commercial treaty between our two countries.  His powers were only to negotiate, not to sign.  And as I could not wait, Mr. Adams and myself signed, and the Chevalier del Pinto expected daily the arrival of powers to do the same.  The footing on which each has placed the other, is that of the most favored nation.  We wished much to have had some privileges in their American possessions:  but this was not to be effected.  The right to import flour into Portugal, though not conceded by the treaty, we are not without hopes of obtaining.