Benjamin Franklin and John Jay to Vergennes, 28 June 1783
Benjamin Franklin and John Jay to Vergennes
Passy, June 28th: 1783.
Sir,
Mr Grand, Banker to the Congress, having laid before us the annexed State of their Affairs in his Hands, we conceive ourselves indispensably obliged to communicate the same to your Excellency, as some important Interests of both Countries are concerned.1
Before the Peace was known in America, and while Mr. Morris had hopes of obtaining the Five per Cent Duty, and a larger Loan from his Majesty, the immediate urgent Necessities of the Army obliged him to draw Bills, and sell them to the Merchants, to raise Money for the Purchase of Provisions, to prevent their starving or disbanding.2
The Merchants have thereupon formed their Plans of Business and remitted those Bills to their Correspondents here, to pay Debts, and purchase Goods in this Kingdom to be carried home in the Ships that are come or coming to France, thus to open a larger Commerce with this Nation.
If those Bills cannot be paid the Creditors of America will be disappointed and greatly hurt, & the Commerce will be deranged & discouraged in its first Operations, of which the Numerous ill Consequences are more easily imagined than described.3
Our Loan in Holland is going on, and with such Prospect of Success, that the Bankers who have the Care of it, have lately sent by express to Mr. Adams all the Blank Obligations necessary to complete it, for him to sign, that they might have them ready to deliver as demanded, his Return thither being delayed.4
This Loan will therefore probably answer the Bills Mr Morris has drawn on those Bankers.5
But the protesting any of his Bills here would occasion such an Alarm there as must probably entirely stop any further progress of that Loan, and thereby increase the Mischief.
The Government of the Congress would also be enfeebled by it.
We apprehend too, that in the present unsettled Situation of our Affairs with England, such a Failure might have very ill Effects, with respect to our Negociations.
We therefore request your Counsel, hoping your Wisdom, which has so often befriended our Nation, may point out some Way by which we may be extricated from this Distress.
And as the King has hitherto so generously assisted us, we hope that if it is any way practicable, his Majesty will crown the glorious Work by affording us this Help at the different Periods when it will be wanted, and which is absolutely the last that will be asked. We are with sincere and great Respect, Sir, your Excellency’s most obedient & most humble Servants
B. Franklin
John Jay
LS, in hand of William Temple Franklin, with French translation in unknown hand, FrPMAE: CP-EU, 24: 406–9 (EJ: 5083). Endorsed: “rep. le 5 Juillet 1783”. Enclosure not found.
1. Although the statement enclosed in this letter has not been found, in his letter to the American Peace Commissioners of 10 May 1783, Grand had appended an account for drafts on him for £3,797,136. 8s. 8d., which he anticipated would be between 500,000 and 1 million l.t. in excess of the funds at his disposal. See , 6: 420–21.
2. On the financial crisis Robert Morris confronted in January 1783, see , 7: 361–71.
3. On the shortfall in American funds, Morris’s drafts on Grand, and French pressure on Morris to raise revenues, see , 7: 264–67, 435, 586–89.
4. For JA’s request to the Dutch bankers managing the loan for funds to assist Grand, see , 3: 125; , 15: 83–84.
5. The draft of Vergennes’s reply of 5 July, indicating that the king declared it impossible to make a further loan, is in FrPMAE: CP-EU, 25: 16 (EJ: 5084). The endorsement indicates that a copy was sent to La Luzerne in July. On the Dutch loan of 1782, funds from which covered bills presented to Grand after the present appeal to France failed, see , 7: 758–60, 8: 17–18, 20–22, 268–69, 315–319, 387–97.