I have lately had the pleasure of receiving your favor of the 7th of September. After the proofs you have given of disinterested zeal in the cause of liberty and America, I cannot harbor a doubt of your opposing the measures of a Court industriously employed in attempts to destroy both.
Your sentiments respecting the expediency of a connexion between the United States and your Republic concur with my own, and I am persuaded that those who know and wish well to the interests of both will assiduously promote it.
As I have received no further intelligence respecting Mr Laurens, I can add nothing on that subject. I cannot doubt but that good reasons have detained him, though I do not know what they are. Congress, I am sure, will continue their attention to the objects of his appointment, and will be happy in cultivating a friendly connexion with a people whose history exhibits many instances of heroic and glorious exertions in a cause similar to their own. Those among you who know history, and venerate the names and characters of their forefathers, cannot consent to be the instruments of despotism, to deprive others of those rights which were purchased for themselves by the blood of their own ancestors.
When or how far it may consist with the views of Congress to make mercantile appointments in your country, I cannot determine; should they ever become necessary, I cannot doubt of your being remembered. The most powerful recommendation I can give them, will be by sending them our correspondence; and for that purpose, copies of all the letters that have passed between us are now preparing, and shall, together with duplicates and triplicates, be sent by the first vessels.
As to the late ordinance of Spain establishing a paper currency, it is a subject on which I make no remarks, and for this very good reason, that the policy and propriety of that measure are objects without my sphere, on which I can have no influence, and which would not be altered by anything I might say or write about them.
The Mexican dollars, mentioned in the bills drawn upon me, I understand to be only another name for Spanish milled dollars, which you know pass here at twenty reals of vellon. How far the sale or payment of these may be affected by the paper in question I know not, though I must confess that I do not apprehend so much evil from it as some others do. These bills will be on an equal footing with all others drawn on Spain, and you will readily suppose it not to be in my power to put them on a better.
The King of Spain has been so kind as to offer to become responsible to a certain amount for monies which I may borrow for Congress, payable in three years. Be so kind as to inform me whether this could be done in your country, on their joint credit, how far, and on what terms.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN JAY.