A Letter so very agreeable kind argues & so in all respects so very apl[a]udble, ought not to have been receivd without a grateful acknowlegement w[ith] all the return I can make; for what benevolent intenti[ons] publick & privat (in neither of wch. I ever ? you respective) an I am assurd equally firsthand. I am to like you [such?], that of our first I have been ? honourd with yours of the 15 of october. come to my hands; but not But it did not come to my hand until more than a month after it was written. I only waited to communicate the contents to the Gentlemen concernd, & then opend my Treaty with the Ministers. I could I was not so fortunate as in reason ought in reason to have expected. should have been? all men are not of the description or of the Sentiments which you have mentiond in your letter. one lady’s ? they do not delight They choose The animoity against Genl. Beugoyne continues. Mr. Laurens is still in the Tower. The former is at the charge of the Congress; where I hope he will meet better Treatment I hope the former will find better resource in the magnamity of a generous Enemy than in the justice of those Ministers under whose dirctions he was he was led to defend in brought into a Situation ? makes such an exchace necessary.

I have been ? all things for the honour of the Community I belong to, I could wish that this Govn. take the lead in every act of Generosity. And this are disfavour of America & ally with the gifts of fortune what fortune also canot give I ? have wished to grant; I am left to supplie

The reason alleged for refusing the exchange proposed by Congress in their Leter of Honesty was that they had ? genl. B was already exchanged. It was to no purpose, that I pleaded the utter impossibility of that fact. Congress has made a Vote in favour of Mr. Laurens wch. they could never act so cruelly & treacherously by their late president, as to falsify their own vote for his release. At that time they had no officer of rank in their hands to that for so far as they It was represented also, in confirmation of this idea that no such Exchange for soldiers had taken place said Months after the Vote, when M. A. G. was off the Chesapeak. to the Exchanges of soldiers the ? included in the Number of ? offered men ? for Genl. Beugoyne, they know that the Congress had already constantly refused to admit them in accounts I added that It was represented to them that who had always made the offer, whenever Genl. B. was concernd because they knew it had been constant these ? had always been ressired in account, ? sense, that they had taken effectual means that no such Exchange should be made. I touchd also that a Topic, that I thought would have had some Effect. Col. Laurens had been employd to settle the Capitulation of York River. This He was too pious a son to be careless of his fathers indifferent about it & too considerable not to be informed of the Vote wh. had been made in favour of his father if he could have imagined the vote ? Exchange for his father could have been rejected; was it to be believed, that he would not have put some difficulties on those who? in the way of others until an exchange so interesting to him had taken place? It was all to no purpose. It was ? to propose & ? that the offer of the Cedres prisoners ought constantly to be adhered to.

I take the Liberty of troubling you with all this, to let you see, that I have not neglected the affair with wch. you have been so obliging as to comment to me. You judges are You have done me a great favour in putting me in the way of repaying an act of kindness done to me by giving me the favour of being ? in doing another. You do me Justice in [thistry?] such a Commerce in the same species is most pleasing to me. If G. B. had not existed much as I love & honour him. I should have exerted every Nerve for Mr. Laurens. Whatever the Ministers may think proper to be done I will not yet suppose, that the Nation feels along with them. After Christmas I shall know more the reason ? I shall consider as a part addition to the obligations to your ? in consequence of the Enquiry & Bill which will be thus brought on.