The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume XII Part 42

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Office of Finance, February 2d, 1784.

Sir,

I have delayed answering your Excellency's favor of the 4th of last month, in the hope that I might have been able to announce to you the having sent off the duplicate of the definitive treaty.

Hitherto no opportunity has offered. But as Colonel Harmar has sailed, and probably Lieutenant Colonel Franks, I am not so anxious on that subject as I have been.

With sincere esteem, I am, &c.

ROBERT MORRIS.

TO MESSRS LE COUTEULX & CO.

Office of Finance, February 12th, 1784.

Gentlemen,

Previously to my letter of the 13th of January, I had received yours of the 10th of September and 18th of October. In one of my said letters I requested you to come under acceptance for Mr Ross's bills, although my public bill in his favor should not be accepted. But Mr Ross a.s.sures me that he has not yet drawn, and promises that he will not draw on the credit of that bill until my advices from Europe shall warrant it. So that my precaution in this respect was unnecessary. Neither is that bill to be protested if not paid when it falls due, but it is to be held by you for Mr Ross's future orders. Those advices which I have lately received, are far from being agreeable, and it is probable that my letters written to Dr Franklin in consequence of them may induce him to apply for your friendly aid to prolong the time of payment of some bills, which I had drawn on the credit of that loan, and which to my great surprise the negotiators of it were not in cash to answer. Should he make any such application, Gentlemen, I am to request that you will come in with your extensive credit, to support that of the United States; and you may rely that I will take care, by proper and speedy remittances, finally to absolve your engagements.

I have this day given to the house of Peter Whitesides & Co. my bill on you, (number ninetyseven) payable at ninety days' sight, and for three hundred thousand livres. I am to desire your acceptance of that bill, which I have drawn, to prevent, if possible, the protest of bills drawn by that House in consequence of one of my said bills on Amsterdam; to put you in cash for that sum, I have purchased already seven hundred hogsheads of tobacco, now lying ready for s.h.i.+pment at Alexandria in Virginia, and directed farther purchases, as also the chartering of vessels to carry it to Europe. I shall make you a s.h.i.+pment of from seven to eight hundred hogsheads as soon as the weather will permit, for at present all our navigation is shut up by the ice. This tobacco shall be s.h.i.+pped to your order at L'Orient, and I think, that with every allowance for delay, it must leave the Chesapeake by the 1st of April at farthest, and will arrive within two months after the bill shall have been presented. The sales of it will therefore put you in cash to answer the bill. But to render the matter as safe as possible, you shall have early advices, so as to make the insurance, which will answer the bill should the tobacco fail.

After all, Gentlemen, it is possible that you may be in advance for a short time. But I make not the least doubt, that you will cheerfully go into the proposed operation, at present necessary to the United States, and which (that necessity out of the question) is in itself among the best kinds of commercial transactions. In order, also, to place you more perfectly at your ease, I agree to make good any expense, which may be incurred, by negotiations to prolong the payment, should it be inconvenient for you to make the actual advance, and should such advance become necessary by accidents of the sea or other unforeseen circ.u.mstances. But at all events my said bills must be honored.

With esteem and respect, &c.

ROBERT MORRIS.

TO MR GRAND.

Office of Finance, February 12th, 1784.

Sir,

The last letter which I have received from you is of the 12th of September, and in that you have left a blank for the amount of funds received from Amsterdam, and inform me, that you expect again to apply for more, as Mr Barclay could not tell what sum he should be able to pay you nor when. My letters from Messrs Wilhelm and Jan Willink, Nicolas and Jacob Van Staphorst, De la Lande and Finje, announce to me a sum remitted to you beyond the idea which I had formed of your wants; and the consequence of it is, that bills I had drawn on them remained unprovided for. Not having received letters from you in so long a time, it is impossible for me to guess at the exact state of your accounts; but if Mr Barclay has placed in your hands the sums which I expected he would have done, it appears to me that the United States must have been considerably in advance to you, at the very moment when my bills were in the critical situation above mentioned. I shall not, however, draw any conclusions on this subject before I receive those advices from you, which I am in the hourly expectation of.

As I do not know whether any effectual measures have yet been taken to provide for the bills, which I had drawn, and which the Houses in Amsterdam were not in cash to answer, owing to a sudden failure of the loan intrusted to their management, I have written to Dr Franklin on that subject, and am now to request your aid in the business, so that time may be given for the arrival of those remittances, which I am making to provide for the consequences, should the loan continue unproductive. On this occasion I confidently rely on your efforts, and I persuade myself, that the credit of the United States, so long preserved in Europe, through doubtful and dangerous events, will not now be suffered to expire for the want of a very little timely aid and attention.

I am, Sir, &c.

ROBERT MORRIS.

TO MESSRS WILLINK & CO.

Office of Finance, February 12th, 1784.

Gentlemen,

On the evening of the 9th instant I received your letters of the 20th of November and 1st of December. The intelligence contained in these letters, so far as concerns the loan under your direction, and the bills which I had drawn upon the credit thereof, is very far from being agreeable.

The tenor of your last letter, renders it necessary for me to obviate the constructions put on my conduct in drawing to that extent. And this is easily done, for it appears by your letters now before me, that the total of those bills for a million, did not exceed the funds actually in your possession, by above six hundred thousand guilders, and if the second expedition of tobacco be deducted, that excess cannot be considered as going beyond five hundred thousand. Now, Gentlemen, I have already told you, that Mr Grand's drafts exceeded my expectation; but we will put this out of the question for the present, as I shall write on that subject to him; but you will observe, that your letters announcing the decline of the loan did not reach me until the close of the last year; and therefore I could not have calculated on so great an alteration. The occurrences in this country, which occasioned it have never appeared of any consequence to us who are on the spot, although, by exaggeration, they have staggered the minds of people in Europe. You will observe also, Gentlemen, that when my letter of the 1st of October was written, I had not received any letter from you of later date than the 11th of June. The intelligence mentioned in my letters as having come through an indirect channel, was contained in a letter from Mr Adams himself, and your letters written in the months of July and August confirmed that intelligence. All this will appear if you compare our correspondences, and place yourselves in the situation, which the long pa.s.sage of your letters of the 4th, 11th and 26th of September placed me. The two first of these did not come to hand until a very few days ago, as you will observe that they are not acknowledged until the 9th instant. It has therefore been alike impossible for me to conjecture the hard fate of my bills, or to provide against it by seasonable remittances.

But as I have already mentioned, the sum total of the advance, which those bills could have occasioned would not exceed five hundred thousand guilders, payable in all the month of March, supposing that the loan should produce nothing in the whole winter. By a circuitous negotiation this payment might have been prolonged without difficulty, and you will see that the measures I am taking, even at this late period, would have produced the necessary funds in season. I have not indeed any right to expect, that you would risk so heavy a sum in reliance on me, but if you had done it I should have felt the obligation, and I think my conduct would have been such as to convince you that the confidence was not misplaced.

Under the present very disagreeable circ.u.mstances, and not knowing whether Dr Franklin has complied with your proposals, I cannot take such decisive steps as I otherwise might. I enclose, however, a copy of the letter which I have written to him, and I shall proceed to make remittances, as soon as the weather, which now shuts up our navigation, will permit. The advices which I shall receive from Europe, while s.h.i.+ps are lading, and which I daily expect, must govern me in the consignments; which is the reason that I can say nothing positive on that subject.

If Dr Franklin has complied with your proposals, you will of course have accepted my bills to the extent of the million guilders. If he has not, it is possible that my letters to him may still arrive in season to prevent the protests for nonpayment. If however this should not be the case, I wish you to call on those who held the bills, and tender payment, on return of the bills, or on giving an indemnity against them; in which case you will also pay the costs of protest, interest which may have accrued, and the like. If they will not do this, you will then be pleased to transmit notarial certificates of your tender of such princ.i.p.al, interest and costs; and if your payments are accepted, to transmit immediate accounts thereof.

With respect to the three bills, numbered one hundred and ninetyone, one hundred and ninetytwo, and one hundred and ninetythree, dated the 21st of October, for two hundred and fifty thousand guilders each, I have agreed with the Houses to whom I sold them, that they shall still lay to be accepted or not, as may hereafter be determined, and in the meantime the United States are to pay the interest of their advances to me until they can reimburse themselves, or are repaid by me, whichever shall eventually happen. The bill number one hundred and ninetyfour, dated the 12th of December last, for one hundred thousand current guilders, I purchased and remitted on my own private account, and have given orders that it be not returned to this country; so that on that subject you may also be at ease. I shall receive on my private account the interest of the forty thousand dollars paid for this bill, on the same principles with which I have settled for the other bills just mentioned. And by the way, you will see how great was my confidence in the success of your operations, when I have involved my own private fortune in the purchase, not only of that bill, but also of four hundred thousand guilders out of the million. All which was done because the demand for exchange on London being greater than on your city, I bought those bills, remitted them, and drew on my private account to replace my funds, merely with a view to facilitate the public service. In addition to the bills just mentioned, there is one which I request may meet due honor; it is number one hundred and ninetyfive, dated the 2d instant, payable at six months' sight, and for fourteen thousand three hundred and nineteen current guilders. This bill was drawn to replace bills drawn above two years ago at six months' sight on the American Minister at Madrid and protested for certain circ.u.mstances attending the negotiation of them; wherefore I was under the necessity of replacing them with twenty per cent damages, by a bill of equal dignity.

I am, Gentlemen, &c.

ROBERT MORRIS.

TO MESSRS WILLINK & CO.

Office of Finance, February 12th, 1784.

Gentlemen,

I am to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 14th of October. My letter to you and the other Houses, will convey sufficiently my sentiments as to the disagreeable consequences occasioned by the ill success of our loan. I shall not here dilate upon that subject, which, for the present, I can only lament; for I agree, Gentlemen, with you, that urgency on your part would rather damp the spirits of monied men than increase their exertions.

I see clearly, that if it were possible to convey an adequate idea of the wealth, extent, and power of this country, it would do a great deal towards exciting the favorable attention of mankind.

But this is a very difficult thing, for the British Ministers, and even their Generals _in the country_, with all the pains they could take, and all the intelligence they could procure, were extremely ignorant of our resources. This is among the reasons why they pursued the conquest of America full three years after every sensible man in it saw that the thing was impossible.

However, as you desire an account of our products, I will refer you to a very unexceptionable testimony, that of the British Ministers themselves, in a pamphlet lately published under the eye of the Court, by Lord Sheffield; in which the writer attempts to prove that we must trade with them whether they treat us well or ill. To show this, he gives certain facts, which, at least, prove that the British are our worst customers, so far as the sale and consumption of our produce is concerned. He proves, also, that if they have any advantage over others, it is what your countrymen may have in an eminent degree over them; I mean the securing a great part of our trade by giving credit to our solid mercantile houses.

But to return from that digression to the princ.i.p.al object of this letter, viz. the actual and probable resources of America. Let it be remembered, that a century ago the place from which this letter was written was an unlimited forest; that the whole State of Pennsylvania did not produce enough to support five hundred men after the European manner, and that every other part of America was, a little earlier or a little later, in the same situation.

But now this very city is worth more than all the public and private debts put together, which we owe to Europe.

M. Van Berckel has convinced me, Gentlemen, of your good will, and zealous endeavors to promote the interests of America. And I flatter myself that not only his representations, but my own conduct, will convince you of the just sense I entertain of those endeavors.

With esteem and respect, &c.

ROBERT MORRIS.

TO B. FRANKLIN.

Office of Finance, February 12th, 1784.

Dear Sir,