"I have just come from the Pardo. The Count de Florida Blanca had not received your letter of yesterday, but I supplied the deficiency by explaining to him your critical and difficult situation. He told me that you might accept the drafts to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, provided M. Cabarrus remains in the same disposition he has displayed hitherto, relative to the time he would wait for the reimbursement of the sums he has advanced, for this purpose. You can, therefore, make an arrangement with M. Cabarrus for the acceptance of the bills to the amount of forty or fifty thousand dollars, and show him this note as his security.
"I hope that this sum will relieve you from your present embarrassment, and give you time to adopt measures for meeting the bills, which shall hereafter become due.
"Although this information is not so fully satisfactory as I could wish, I take pleasure in communicating it to you, with assurances of my sincere and inviolable attachment.
THE COUNT DE MONTMORIN."
You will doubtless think with me it was very extraordinary, that the Minister should not have received my letter sent him yesterday by the Court courier. Why and by whose means it was kept back can only be conjectured. Had not the Ambassador's application supplied the want of it, a pretext for the Minister's silence would thence have arisen. The letter did not in fact miscarry, for the Minister afterwards received it. The Minister's caution in making his becoming engaged for the advances in question to depend on M. Cabarrus' persisting in the same dispositions he had lately declared, relative to the time he would be content to wait for a reimbursement, is somewhat singular, considering that his offers on that head had been repeatedly and explicitly communicated to the Minister, and to the Ambassador of France, both by him and by me. Immediately on receiving the Ambassador's letter, I gave it to Mr Carmichael with instructions to show it to M. Cabarrus, and bring me back his answer without delay, for I was then expecting the notary and others with bills.
Mr Carmichael returned and informed me, that he had communicated the letter to M. Cabarrus, and that instead of abiding by his former offer, to be content with the Minister's engaging to see him repaid in ten or twelve months, he insisted on being repaid in four months, in four equal monthly payments, and those payments secured by orders on the rents of the general post-office; and that M. Cabarrus promised either to write or speak to the Minister about it.
A new application to the Minister became necessary, and consequently further time and indulgence from the holders of the bills was to be solicited.
I told the notary, that I was in treaty with M. Cabarrus for the supplies I wanted, and that one or two articles remained to be adjusted, which could not be done till the next day.
I therefore requested him to suspend the protest for twentyfour hours more, and to apply to the holders of the bills for permission, adding that near twenty of them belonged to M. Cabarrus, and that from the friendly conduct of several of the others I had reason to flatter myself, that they would readily consent. He seemed surprised at what I said respecting my expectations from M. Cabarrus, and with a degree of indignation told me, that M. Cabarrus was more pressing than any of the others, and had already sent him two messages to conclude the matter with me without delay, that he had received one of the messages the day before, and the other that morning. He nevertheless cheerfully undertook to obtain permission from the holders of the bills to wait till the next afternoon, and succeeded in it.
The next morning, viz. the 16th of March, I waited upon the Ambassador. I mentioned to him these several facts, and told him, that my hopes from M. Cabarrus were at an end, for that exclusive of other circumstances it was not probable that, considering his lucrative connexions with government, he would risk treating the promise of the Minister, made in consequence of his own offer, with so little respect, as to demand such formal and unusual securities for the performance of it, unless there had been some previous concert, or indirect management in the case. The Ambassador declined assenting to this opinion. He promised to see the Minister, with whom he was that day to dine, and to send me his positive and final answer by four o'clock in the afternoon.