He worries that he has not heard from his mother in two years. He has been in Louisiana for seven months, hoping that the colony's peripheral location would be easier for business, but since the United States of America has taken it over it has been overrun by Anglo-Americans who arrived with their money and took over all branches of commerce, making it impossible for the rest of them. He has therefore decided to join the military, either in the troops that serve Guadeloupe or Martinique, or as part of an expedition that he expects will start very soon making a second attempt against Saint-Domingue. It seems much easier than business. He asks his mother to send him a few casks of wine. He misses his family and sends news of mutual acquaintances, including the deaths of two members of a family nearby in France.