| Description | ("No. 6." Includes a passage in secret writing.)
No. 6.
Paris, March 7th, 1791.
Dear Sir!
I hope you received all my letters of the 12, 21, 25, and 28 of February, as well as that of the 4th of March; I have received yours of the 14, 17, 21, and 28 of last month, and have acknowledged the reception regularly in my answers, being accustomed to punctuality and regularity in correspondence; if you are as exact and punctual as my principles oblige me to be at all times, we shall never have any reason to complain of one another on this point.
So, you got rid of last of your friend Droz; but instead of kicking this raskel out of your doors-or, at least, instead of letting him run away directly, which I do not doubt he would have done, supported as he is by his friends here-your treatment and behaviour to him were such that I doubt you could or would have done more, had he been an honest man. This was doing yourself little justice, whilst you encourage the infamous caracter of this man; but I really believe this fellow has bewitched you; you was afraid of him, and instead of doing what Mr. Loggins prudently advised you to do, you have done yourself a real injury without having effected any thing whatever to your satisfaction.
But no more of this bad man. What I beg of you is only never to compromise me with him or any of the people he is connected with here. I doubt very much whether he will ever be employed here in the Mint, even as an engraver, for Dupré's superior skill and merit is very well known to the Committee; and if Droz had ever been employed by them, it was, as the President of the said Committee told me in a conversation I had with him, rather on account of his mechanical knowledge than on account of his skill as an engraver. This mechanical skill the Committee is now well convinced is nothing but fanfaronade, and I can speak with some degree of confidence that he will never be employed by the Government here in that capacity; so far I have done for him, and I hope you had enough of him not to venture to be his dupe a second time.
I am, yours sincerely,
F. Swediaur
[There follows a passage written with sympathetic ink, which has not yet been transcribed.] |