TRANSACTIONS, &c. 
/ 
A Letter from Robert R. Livingston, Lsq. 
President of the Society^ and Minister Plenipo¬ 
tentiary oj the United States in Franees, to Ben¬ 
jamin De Witt, M» !)• of Albany, 
Paris, 24/>6 Non ), 1802^ 
DEAR SIRy 
There are many obstacles to a stranger’s 
learning the arts or agriculture of a foreign coun¬ 
try, in a short period—the prejudice of the pea¬ 
santry, the want of faculty in their language, and 
the mistakes that this naturally leads him into, 
both in putting his questions and receiving their 
answers ; yet these may be overcome by a man 
who makes it his object and devotes his time to 
the acquisition of this knowledge, but never by 
one who only travels post, and is compelled to con¬ 
fine his observations to what he sees, or to the has¬ 
ty information he can pick up at the post houses. 
This must be my apology for the imperfect re¬ 
marks I now propose to submit to the society. 
I LANDED at L’Orient, the 16th November. 
This season of the year is extremely unpleasant in 
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