TO A COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS.
Office of Finance, May 15th, 1783.
Gentlemen,
In consequence of the conversation which passed between us this morning, I shall give you the best information in my power as to the state of my Department and the resources I can command.
You have in the enclosed paper an account of receipts and expenditures from the commencement of the year to the end of the last month; by which it appears, that there is an advance on credit to the amount of near six hundred thousand dollars, exclusive of what may appear in Mr Swanwick's accounts for the month of April. A large sum is also due on General Greene's drafts, and the contractors are to be paid in this month for the supplies of January last. At the end of this month, therefore, that anticipation must necessarily be much increased, as will appear from the slightest reflection after what is to be said of our resources.
These are either foreign or domestic. As to the first, I enclose the copy of the last letter I have received from Mr Grand, and I have to add to what is contained in that letter, that the day it was received, my drafts on him, over and above those mentioned in it, amounted to three millions forty thousand two hundred and seventyeight livres. I have directed, therefore, Mr Barclay to pay over to Mr Grand any moneys, which may be in his possession, and I have directed Messrs Willink & Co. of Amsterdam to do the same, after deducting what may be necessary to pay the interest of their loan falling due the 1st of June next. But as I have no accounts of how much has been borrowed since the end of January, and as all which had been borrowed before was disposed of, I cannot determine how far they can come in aid of Mr Grand. Neither can I tell until the receipt of his accounts what aid he may stand in need of. In these circumstances I am obliged to leave about eighteen hundred thousand livres (which remain of a sum placed in the hands of Messrs Le Couteulx for answering drafts intended through Havana,) to answer any deficiency of other funds to pay my drafts on Mr Grand. These then, Gentlemen, are all the foreign resources, except what the French Court may advance on the late resolutions of Congress, and you will see by the enclosed translation of a letter from the Minister of France, what little hope is to be entertained from that quarter.
Our domestic resources are twofold. First, certain goods and other property, such as horses, wagons, &c. These latter will produce very little, and the former are, by the peace, very much reduced in value, and from the nature of the goods themselves they are chiefly unsaleable. Very little reliance, therefore, can be placed on this first dependence. The amount I cannot possibly ascertain, for I do not yet know, and cannot until the opening of them now in hand shall be completed, the kinds, quality and situation. Some are damaged, those which were deemed most saleable have been tried at vendue, and went under the first cost, and much the greater part will certainly not sell at a fourth of their value.