To John Jay from Robert Morris, 15 August 1781
From Robert Morris
Office of Finance
15th. August 1781
Sir
Enclosed you have a List of sundry Bills of Exchange drawn on you. I wrote you relatively to these Bills on the twenty ninth day of July last1 with sundry Enclosures Explanatory of my Letter I am now to inform you that the Advices contained in that Letter must from particular circumstances be totally disregarded. Should any of the Bills mentioned in the enclosed List come to your Hands you will be pleased to Protest them and assign if you please as a Reason therefore that you have express Instructions to that Purport.2 The Uncertainty whether you have receivd my cypher prevents my using it on this occasion.3 The Importance of the Subject obliges me to Write and as I send many Copies the risqué of Capture and inspection is too great to be particular— The Gazettes will furnish you with our latest Intelligence That of New York announces the Arrival of near 3000 Hessian Troops and the Capture of the Trumbull Frigate. Neither of these are very agreeable Circumstances However we must wait the Course of Events and Struggle as well as we can against adverse Fortune. Our affairs to the Southward wear no unpleasing Aspect and altho it is impossible at this Distance to determine what Effect European Movements may have on American Politicks Our Government acquires daily a Firmness and Stability which will not be easily shaken. I have the Honor to be with great Respect your Most Obedient
Robt Morris
His Excelly John Jay Esqr.
LS, marked “Triplicate,” Joseph M. Maddalena, Profiles in History; LbkC, DLC: Robert Morris (EJ: 10232); C, in Spanish, with enclosed list of bills translated into Spanish, SpSeAG: Papeles procedentes de Cuba; Tr, in Spanish, MHi: Sparks. Printed with enclosed list of bills in Rivington’s Royal Gazette, 12 and 15 Sept.; and Pennsylvania Packet, 20 Sept. 1781.
1. Morris’s letter of 29 July enclosed copies of his letters of 17 July to the governor of Havana and to American agent Robert Smith regarding his plan to negotiate in Cuba unsold bills of exchange previously drawn on JJ in order to acquire specie to help capitalize the planned Bank of North America. Should Spanish officials at Havana decline to advance funds, Morris added, the bills could serve as collateral for loans to be reimbursed with flour shipments from the United States to Cuba. LS, in code (“Office of Finance Cipher Number 1” [WE006]), with decoded copy in the hand of JJ, NNC (EJ: 7008, 70090); LbkCs, in code and decoded, DLC: Robert Morris (EJ: 10231, 10270); , 1: 311–16, 318–22, 412. See the Notes on John Jay’s Conference with Floridablanca of 5 July 1780, above; and “Spain’s Finances and the Bills Drawn on John Jay” (editorial note) on pp. 371–72, note 14.
2. This notice was precipitated by the British capture of the Trumbull, the American frigate on which Morris had sent the $120,381 in bills of exchange drawn on JJ, discussed in note 1, above. Morris’s instruction was intended to prevent the British from presenting the bills for payment. He later concluded, however, that they had been sunk prior to the capture. Morris’s letter was intercepted and published with the enclosed list of bills in Rivington’s Royal Gazette on 12 and 15 Sept., with acerbic remarks added by editor James Rivington declaring it to be a “Mystery of Iniquity” that demonstrated American financial irregularity. On 20 Sept. the Pennsylvania Packet republished Morris’s letter and Rivington’s comments with an explanation of Morris’s actions and thanks to Rivington for multiplying “the chance of communicating it to Mr. Jay.” On 1 Oct., Morris sent Congress an official explanation of his actions, which Congress formally approved on 2 Oct. Nevertheless, on 24 Oct., Rivington published Silas Deane to William Duer, 14 June 1781, which criticized Congress’s drawing bills on its ministers in Europe without prior authorization and declared foreign loans unlikely. Rivington declared that Deane’s statements “threw light on the American Financier’s late Mystery of Iniquity, respecting his instructions to Mr. Jay, to protest the Bills of Congress’s own drawing.” No acknowledgment of Morris’s letter by JJ has been found. See , 2: 64–65; 3: 5, 6n, 10–11; and JJ to BF, 10 Sept., below, and notes. On Deane’s “intercepted” letters, see the editorial note “Silas Deane: A Worrisome Correspondent” on pp. 243–46.
3. “Office of Finance Cipher Number 1” (WE006). See “John Jay’s Use of Codes and Ciphers” (editorial note) on pp. 10–11.