From John Jay to Benjamin Franklin, 10 September 1781
To Benjamin Franklin
St Ildefonso 10 Sep. 1781
Dear Sir
My last to You was of the 20 Day of Augt last by Dupin the F. Embassadors Courier.
Major Franks, with dispatches from ^Congress & from^ Mr. R Morris,1 is now with me & will proceed to Paris ^Passy^ as soon as I shall be enabled to write by him.2
He will bring you a Copy of Mr Morris’s Letter to me from which you will observe perceive the State, in ^see the present State of^ American Finances at present an, and the Measures he is prosecuting to ameliorate them &c &.3 You recieve by him such Papers as were ^will^ enable ^you^ to form a Judgment of other interesting Matters and particularly My former Letters mentioned my apprehensions that many ^more^ Bills had been drawn upon me than those for which the Sum you authorized me to drawn upon you for wd. satisfy.
Near seventy thousand Dollars will be wanted to pay those which have since arrived, and tho I cannot think it proba improbable that Provision may here be made for at least a part of that Sum, yet from the Delays which usually attend operations of this Kind render it highly necessary that occasional Resources be elsewhere had.
This Consideration so far as it applies to the Payments to be made in the next two succeeding Months obliges me again to recur to You.
The sanguine Expectations entertained by the our Country from the Appointment of Mr. Morris, his known abilities Integrity & Industry, the useful Reformations he has begun, & the judicious Measures he is pursuing abroad as well as at Home, afford Reason to Hope that under his Direction american Credit will be reestablished, and the Evils which have ^long^ threatned us on that Head, avoided.
It would be useless therefore to remark how important it is to prevent our Credit from recieving a deep additional Wound at the very Moment when so much is doing to recover it. The Protest of any of our public Bills for want of Payment wd. at ^this^ Period be more injurious than heretofore, and unless again saved by you, that cruel necessity must take place with Respect to
those on me. Besides, as the singular Policy of drawing Bills without previous Funds will now be relinquished, We have Reason to flatter ourselves that if the present Difficulties ^we shall in future have no^ Embarrassments of this Kind to struggle with. I am well persuaded that Mr Morris will not pursue such hazardous & unprecedented measures, and therefore as in all human Probability the present Difficulties will be all that we shall have to surmount, I hope you will think with me that the utmost Exertions shd. be made for the Purpose, and that after having done so much to save the Credit of Cr american Bills you will be still disposed to do every thing in your Power to put it out of Danger.4
When it will be in my Power to replace the Sums drawn from you, it ^is^ hard to divine—all I can say or do, is, to assure you that nothing but want of ability has or shall delay or prevent it.
When I consider how much might have been saved had I been ab my Bills on you been sold to those who would have taken them on the best Terms, I cannot forbear thinkg it wd. be adviseable to give me only general authority to draw for the Sum ^such Sums as I may want not exceeding the one^ you may stipulate and you may rely that upon it that of ^limit^
The Sum wanted for October is 12′567 Dollars—and for November 3′600—I mention only
I particularize only the payments of due in those two Months because before by ^before^ the first of December I hope to my Expectations from other Quarters will ^at least^ be ascertained. I am Dear Sir with great & sincere Regard & Esteem your obliged & obt Servt.
His Excy Dr Franklin
PS. The Marquis DYranda has recd a Letter from Mr. Grand informing him that no further ^more^ Bills are to be drawn upon you by me without your further Order, this Circumstance makes it proper me to mention that ^I am a little at a Loss^ to determine whether this Restriction is intended to extend to the Ballance ^wh remains^ of the Sum ^25000 Doll.^ allotted for the payment of the Bills at two months Sight—and for which I was ^only^ to draw as occasion might require.
Lest my having protested refused to accept some Bills drawn upon me by Congress shd. give Rise to Reports prejudial to their Credit, I transmit here-with Enclosed a State of that Case,5 you will be pleased to make such Use of it as Circumstances may render necessary. I gave a Copy of it to the Gentleman who presented the Bills, and desired that it might be recited at large in the Protest—
Dft, NNC (EJ: 7808). LbkCs, enclosed in JJ to RRL, 28 Apr. 1782, DNA: PCC, item 110, 2: 8–11 (EJ: 4185); CSmH (EJ: 3434); NNC: JJ Lbk. 1.
1. On the dispatches, see the notes to JJ to Robert Morris, 1 Sept., above.
2. Franks departed for France on 5 Oct. See JJ to the President of Congress, 18 Oct., below.
3. See Robert Morris to JJ, 4 July, above.
4. BF had already written JJ on 4 Sept., above, that bills were still being presented; on 12 Sept., BF wrote Morris to protest that bills continued to arrive in excess of the funds available from foreign loans. See “Spain’s Finances and the Bills Drawn on John Jay” (editorial note) on pp. 368–69; and , 2: 261.
A resolution of Congress of 4 June 1781 committed all remaining unsold bills of exchange previously drawn on the ministers plenipotentiary to France, Spain, and the Netherlands to Morris as superintendent of finance for use in financing the current military campaign, with the proviso that none be sold on Spain or the Netherlands until Morris had assurances that funds had been provided for paying them. , 20: 597–98. This included bills previously in the hands of Joseph Carlton, paymaster of the Board of War and Ordnance, and those in the hands of Thomas Smith, the loan officer for Pennsylvania. Later in June, Morris secured control of bills totaling £99,638.11.1 sterling—$94,050 (£21,211.5) in bills on Madrid and 861,050 guilders (£78,427.6.1) in bills on Amsterdam—that had been lodged as security for subscriptions to the Bank of Pennsylvania in 1780. Morris sought to market in Havana a substantial portion of the former Carlton and Pennsylvania bank bills on JJ, totalling $120,381, in anticipation of a new Spanish loan. However, these were not negotiated because the bills were sunk when the Trumbull, the ship that was transporting them to Cuba, was captured by the British. See Morris to JJ, 15 Aug., above; and , 1: 73–74n, 162n.
Morris assigned the unsold bills on JJ and on Laurens formerly held by Thomas Smith to John Ross to make partial payment on debts Ross owed European creditors for goods purchased on public account. JJ was unable to pay the $25,782 in bills drawn on him, but BF, to whom JJ appealed, ultimately covered them. BF was able to cover the 45,958 guilders ($16,383.18) in bills on Laurens in March 1782. Among the other bills still arriving were $6,909 in bills on JJ that Smith had sold during the period from February to April 1781, the earliest months of Morris’s administration, after which sales ceased. The rest of the bills on Laurens, amounting to 657,800 guilders, were canceled. See Robert Morris to JJ, 29 June, above; , 35: 404–5; 36: 575–76, 652, 680, 681, 685; 37: 5–6, 22, 67, 72–73; and , 1: 191–92; 2: 261–63; 3: 271–72, 284, 288–89n, 329; 4: 486–87; 9: 703, 705–6, 916, 919.
In 1783 Morris again resorted to the use of bills of exchange on France and the Netherlands drawn before the funds to pay them had been raised, but he did not again attempt to draw on Spain. See JJ to Morris, 20 July 1783, Dft, NNC (EJ: 9333), and Morris to JJ, 4 Nov. 1783, ALS and LS marked copy, NNC (EJ: 7017, 7018), , 319–21, 706–10.
5. Probably JJ’s explanation that he had refused to pay bills drawn on him by Francis Hopkinson on 4 Dec. 1780 and made payable by Samuel Beall of Virginia to Hugh Johnson in London. JJ argued that Congress had declared all commercial intercourse between Americans and Britain illegal for the duration of the war, that the bills might have been captured by the British, and that they appeared to have been tampered with. See JJ’s statement of his refusal to accept the bills presented by Messrs. Patrick Joyce and Sons, 7 Sept. 1781, ADS, DNA: PCC, item 89, 365 (EJ: 11909). On later bills similarly negotiated that JJ refused to accept, see Morris to JJ, 4 Nov. 1783 (cited in note 4, above).