To John Jay from Gouverneur Morris, 20 March 1780
From Gouverneur Morris
Phila: 20th. March 1780
Dr Jay.
The Disaster you met with and the Delay occasioned by it will make all my Letters old before you see them— Your Note from Martinique the Day after your arrival shuts my Mouth as to any Thing worth your knowing.1 This Letter will go by a circuitous Rout but I trust a safe one. I shall therefore mention that Congress have anvilled out another new System of Finance the Plain English of which is a Breach of their Resolution to stop the Press.2 After this the public Faith is to be pledged &ca. on all which I shall make no Comment. In General I tell you that it wont do and Money must therefore be had in Europe for however there may be a Sufficiency in the Country that is of little Importance unless there could be ways and Means discovered to draw it out. I early foresaw what hath now happened and as early predicted it and as early labored to prevent it and according to Custom was answered with a Compliment to my fine Imagination God help the knowing ones. Adieu my Dear Friend.
Gouv. Morris
Remember me to yours.
ALS, PPIn (EJ: 11967). Addressed: “To Mr Jay / to be left chez Monsieure / Monsr. Grand / banquiere / Paris—”. Endorsed: “ . . . Recd 4 July 1780”.
1. Letter not found.
2. The resolution of 18 Mar. 1780 attempted to address the depreciation of the Continental currency by devaluing Continental dollars and replacing them with what Congress hoped would be a well-supported new emission currency at the rate of one dollar for every twenty Continental dollars withdrawn from circulation. Two-fifths of the new currency was to be at the disposal of Congress. The remainder was to be allocated to the states that delivered the old. The currency was guaranteed by the state and Continental governments, was redeemable in six years, bore 5 percent interest payable annually in bills of exchange if desired, and was to be made legal tender by the states. As Gouverneur Morris predicted, despite all these supports, it failed to retain its value. See , 16: 262–67; JJ to Floridablanca, 28 June 1780 (second letter), and Robert Morris to JJ, 4 July 1781, below; and , 51–53, 56. On the 1779 pledge to cease issuing paper money once it reached $200 million, see JJ’s Circular Letter from Congress to Their Constituents, 13 Sept. 1779, : 667–78; and , 46–47. For the impact of the act of 18 Mar. 1780, see the Secretary of Congress (Charles Thomson) to JJ, 12 Oct., below.