LUZERNE.
TO ROBERT MORRIS.
Translation.
Philadelphia, March 15th, 1783.
Sir,
I have the satisfaction of informing you, that his Majesty has procured for the United States, a loan of six millions, to be employed in the Department of War, during the course of the present year. In announcing to you, Sir, this new mark of the friendship of the King for the United States, I must enter into some details, which relate to your operations, and which will make you acquainted with the motives, which have induced his Majesty to make this new effort in favor of his allies.
In the course of the last year, Sir, I gave an account to his Majesty's Minister, of the order, which seemed to me to be introduced into the department intrusted to you, of the re-establishment of the public credit, and of the economy, which attended your operations. I added, that I considered the establishment of a public revenue, for the payment of interest, and the progressive redemption of the capitals, as extremely probable, and as the delay and the difficulty of communication would not allow me to wait till this operation was completed by the different Legislatures, before I should explain what were the wants of the United States, I took it upon myself to write to the Count de Vergennes, that the disposition of the people to fulfil the engagements made, and to be made by Congress, appeared to me sufficiently favorable to induce his Majesty to lend a new sum of money to the United States, for this year, if the state of his finances should allow it. These assurances determined the loan of six millions; but the event has proved, that I had deceived myself in the hopes, which I had thought myself authorised to give to my Court, and so far from the financial affairs being improved since the month of February, the time at which my letters on this subject were written, they have, on the contrary, taken a retrograde direction, and I see no certainty of the payment of the sums previously lent, and of that which has just been lent.
Thus, Sir, my hasty assurances have determined his Majesty to advance this money, and, at the moment in which I am informed of it, I am under the disagreeable necessity of acquainting his Minister, that the hopes, which I had given have vanished, and that my assurances were without foundation.
I shall say nothing to you of the embarrassing situation, in which I am personally placed by these circumstances. But I shall take the liberty of observing to you, that in the present juncture, the best remedy is to take, as soon as possible, the measures which have not been taken within the time which I had announced.