CHAPTER II
GALLO-AMERICAN COMMERCE AND THE DEBT QUESTION
After Franklin's departure from Paris, Jefferson was left officially in charge of the diplomatic relations of the United States with the French Court. Adams was in London and Carmichael in Madrid, and with them he exchanged extensive communications. But the Paris legation was really the headquarters of American diplomacy, and the problems that came up taxed the ingenuity and all the intellectual resources Jefferson could command.
Summing up his activities in Paris, he declared with too much modesty in his "Autobiography":
My duties, at Paris, were confined to a few objects; the receipts of our whale oils, salted fish, and salt meat, on favorable terms; the admission of our rice on equal terms with that of Piedmont, Egypt and the Levant; a mitigation of the monopolies of our tobacco by the Farmers-general, and a free admission of our productions into their islands, were the principal commercial objects which required attention; and on these occasions, I was powerfully aided by all the influence and the energies of the Marquis de LaFayette, who proved himself equally zealous for the friendship and welfare of both nations.
As a matter of fact, Jefferson's duties extended to many other subjects, of which the most important and at any rate the most perplexing may have been the settlement of the debt question. This problem, as we shall presently see, haunted Jefferson's mind and was never separated by him from the purely commercial questions. In many respects the situation then existing between the United States and France was very similar to the present situation and certainly not easier to solve. An estimate of Jefferson's career that would leave out this particular side of his activities when in France, would necessarily be incomplete, if not misleading. A large part of the minister's time was devoted, not to philosophical conversations with Helvétius' friends but to obstinate, patient, and harassing endeavor to obtain for his country commercial rights and even privileges that would enable her to pay off her debt to Europe. In spite of his affected scorn for figures and statistics, the "philosopher" demonstrated an unusual business ability.
The tobacco trade in which the Southern States and particularly Virginia were vitally interested was at that time entirely in the hands of the Farmers-general, whose monopoly was not administered to the best interests of either the American growers or the French consumers. Being closely allied with some of the prominent economists and entirely in sympathy with their views, Lafayette was naturally against the farming of taxes on tobacco. But as he realized that there was very little hope of doing away entirely with the system, he contented himself at first with employing his best efforts to facilitate the direct importation of tobacco into France. As early as May, 1785, he managed to obtain a copy of a document indicating that some London dealers were offering to the Farmers-general large quantities of Virginia tobacco. He communicated the document at once to Jefferson, and suggested that it was important for both countries to eliminate the London middlemen. Direct commercial relations should be established between France and America, not only as a matter of patriotism, but also as a matter of interest.[121]
This proposed change in the traditional policy of the Farmers-general, who were accustomed to deal with British intermediaries, met with a strong opposition from the Farmers-general. For reasons which they did not state openly, they refused either to deal with independent American growers, or to buy from a new and strictly American company planned by Jefferson.[122]
Unable to overcome the resistance of the Farmers-general, Jefferson decided that the next step would be to fight the monopoly and to persuade the Court to do away with it. It was a logical more than a truly diplomatic procedure, since Jefferson took upon himself to meddle in the internal affairs of the government to which he was accredited. But Jefferson, without being the originator of the famous "shirt-sleeve" diplomacy, was not the man to let diplomatic proprieties stand in the way of the best interests of his country. Furthermore, he was quite sincere in his belief that he was acting to the greatest advantage of both France and America. He therefore wrote to Vergennes a long letter, in which he stated the advantages which would accrue to the royal treasury from the abolition of the tobacco monopoly.[123]