I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO B. FRANKLIN.
Amsterdam, May 8th, 1781.
Sir,
I have the honor of yours of the 29th of April, and according to your desire I have enclosed a list of the bills accepted, with the times of their becoming due, and shall draw for the money to discharge them only as they become payable, and through the house of Fizeaux & Grand.
I sincerely congratulate you upon the noble aid obtained from the French Court, for the current service of the year. Aids like this for two or three years, while the United States are arranging their finances, will be a most essential service to the common cause, and will lay a foundation of confidence and affection between France and the United States, which may last forever, and be worth ten times the sum of money. It is in the power of America to tax all Europe whenever she pleases, by laying duties upon her exports enough to pay the interest of money enough to answer all their purposes. England received into her Exchequer four hundred thousand pounds sterling in duties upon the single article of tobacco, imported from Virginia annually. What should hinder the government of Virginia from laying on the same, or a greater duty, on the exportation? Europe would still purchase Virginia tobacco, if there were eight pounds per hogshead duty to be paid. Virginia alone, therefore, could in this way easily pay the interest of money enough to carry on the whole war for the thirteen States for many years. The same reasoning is applicable to every article of export.
Yesterday were presented to me fifty bills of exchange for eleven hundred guilders each, drawn by Congress upon me on the 27th day of January, 1781, at six months sight. And on the same day other bills from No. 37 to No. 76 inclusively, drawn on me on the same 27th day of January, 1781, for five hundred and fifty guilders each, payable at six months sight, were presented to me. I asked time to write to your Excellency, to know if these bills and the others, drawn at the same time, can be discharged by you. If they cannot, it will be wrong to accept them, for I have no prospect at all of getting the money here, unless the States-General, who have taken the independence of America ad referendum, should determine to acknowledge it.
About the same time that their High Mightinesses took the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States ad referendum, M. Van Berckel demanded a declaration of his innocence, or a trial. Whether the two affairs will aid or counteract each other I cannot tell.