If you can accomplish the negotiation on the terms I have mentioned, you will then remit the bills to a good house in the Havana, to receive the money and hold it subject to my order; and you will, if you can, fix the terms on which that House are to do the business. Whether anything of this sort takes place or not, I am to request that you will give me every information on the subject, which you can acquire.
I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient and humble servant,
ROBERT MORRIS.
TO B. FRANKLIN.
Office of Finance, September 27th, 1782.
Sir,
I have the honor to enclose the copy of Acts of Congress of the 14th and 23d instant, together with the copy of my letter of the 30th of July, covering the estimates for the year 1783. These estimates are not yet finally decided on. By the Act of the 14th you are, as you perceive, instructed to communicate the resolution for borrowing four millions of dollars, to his Most Christian Majesty; and first, to assure his Majesty of the high sense, which the United States in Congress assembled entertain of his friendship and generous exertions. Secondly, their reliance on a continuance of them; and thirdly, the necessity of applying to his Majesty on the present occasion.
From this, and even more particularly from the Act of the 23d, you will see, that it is the wish of Congress to obtain this money from or by means of the King. After the decisive expressions contained in those resolutions, of the sense of our Sovereign, I am sure that it is unnecessary for me to attempt anything like argument to induce your exertions. I shall, therefore, rather confine myself to giving information. The grateful sense of the King's exertions, which has so warmly impressed your bosom, operates with undiminished force upon Congress; and what is of more importance, in a country like ours, has the strongest influence upon the whole whig interest of America.
I have no doubt but that the King's Minister here has given his Court regular information on this and every other subject of equal importance, and, therefore, any general assurances on your part will be complimentary, and in some degree superfluous. But there is a kind of knowledge not easily attainable by foreigners in any country, particularly on such a matter as the present. It is not amiss, therefore, that I should convey it to you, and your good sense will apply it in the most proper manner. You (of all men in the world) are not now to learn, that the sour English prejudices against everything French had taken deep root in the minds of America. It could not have been expected that this should be obliterated in a moment. But by degrees almost every trace of it has been effaced. The conduct of Britain has weaned us from our attachments, and those very attachments have been transferred, in a great measure, to France.