TO THE COUNT DE VERGENNES.
Passy, June 28th, 1783.
Sir,
Mr Grand, banker to the Congress, having laid before us the annexed state of their affairs in his hands, we conceive ourselves indispensably obliged to communicate the same to your Excellency, as some important interests of both countries are concerned.[15]
Before the peace was known in America, and while Mr Morris had hopes of obtaining the five per cent duty and a larger loan from his Majesty, the immediate urgent necessities of the army obliged him to draw bills, and sell them to the merchants, to raise money for the purchase of provisions, to prevent their starving or disbanding.
The merchants have thereupon formed their plans of business, and remitted those bills to their correspondents here, to pay debts, and purchase goods in this kingdom, to be carried home in the ships, that are come, or coming to France, thus to open a larger commerce with this nation.
If those bills cannot be paid, the creditors of America will be disappointed and greatly hurt, and the commerce will be deranged and discouraged in its first operations, of which the numerous ill consequences are more easily imagined than described.
Our loan in Holland is going on, and with such prospect of success, that the bankers, who have the care of it, have lately sent by express to Mr Adams all the blank obligations, necessary to complete it, for him to sign, that they might have them ready to deliver, as demanded, his return thither being delayed.
This loan will, therefore, probably answer the bills Mr Morris has drawn on those bankers.
But the protesting any of his bills here would occasion such an alarm there, as must probably entirely stop any further progress of that loan, and thereby increase the mischief.