B. FRANKLIN.
P. S. This value, 400,000 dollars, is to be considered as exclusive of any provisions already furnished, but the receipts for those should also be sent me, if not paid for there.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
Passy, December 3d, 1780.
Sir,
I duly received the letter your Excellency did me the honor of writing to me on the 12th of July past, by Mr Searle, and have paid the bills drawn on me by order of Congress in favor of the President and Council of Pennsylvania, for one thousand pounds sterling, which were presented by him. He is at present in Holland.
The news of Mr Laurens having been taken must have reached you long since; he is confined in the Tower, but of late has some more liberty for taking air and exercise than first was allowed him. Certain papers found with him relating to the drafts of a treaty proposed in Holland, have been sent over to the Stadtholder, who laid them before their High Mightinesses, who communicated them to the government of the city of Amsterdam, which justified the transaction. This has drawn from England a memorial, delivered by Sir Joseph Yorke, demanding that the Pensionary and Magistrates of that city should be punished, and declaring that the King will resent a refusal of the States to comply with this demand. What answer will be given to this insolent memorial we do not yet know. But I hear it has produced much displeasure in Holland, and it is thought to have occasioned a more prompt accession to the armed neutrality, which had before met with obstructions from the English party there.
We have met with a variety of unaccountable delays and difficulties in the affair of shipping the clothing and stores. The Alliance went away without taking her part. The Ariel sailed, but met a storm at sea that dismasted her, and obliged her to return to France. She is nearly again ready to sail. Mr Ross, with his cargo of clothes in the Duke of Leinster, sailed under convoy of the Ariel, but did not return with her, and I hope may get safe to America. The great ship we hired to come to L'Orient, and take in the rest of what we had to send, has been long unexpectedly detained at Bordeaux. I am afraid the army has suffered for want of the clothes; but it has been as impossible for me to avoid, as it was to foresee these delays.
The late Minister of the Marine here, M. de Sartine, is removed, and his place supplied by M. le Marquis de Castries. But this change does not effect the general system of the Court, which continues favorable to us.