To Alexander Hamilton from Jean Baptiste de Ternant, 22 August 1792
From Jean Baptiste de Ternant1
Phile. 22 aout 1792
D’après le changement que vous avez consenti de faire à l’epoque du payement qui devoit avoir lieu le lr. sepe. prochain,2 j’ai à vous prier de vouloir bien faire payer au Consul de france de la forest3 ou à son ordre, 26,088 piastres le 15 du mois prochain et 17,936 piastres le lr. octobre suivant. Quand le montant et les epoques des besoins subséquents seront particulierement determinés j’aurai l’honeur de vous en prevenir.
LC, Arch. des Aff. Etr., Corr. Pol., Etats-Unis, Supplement Vol. 20.
1. Ternant presented his credentials as French Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States on August 2, 1791.
For earlier references to plans to defray the cost of supplies for the relief of Santo Domingo by using payments on the debt due to France which the United States had incurred during the American Revolution, see Ternant to H, September 21, 1791, February 21, March 8, 10, June 26, 1792; H to Ternant, September 21, 1791, February 22, March 8, 11, 12, June 23, 26, 1792; William Short to H, December 28, 1791, January 26, April 22, 25, May 14, June 28, August 6, 1792; H to Short, April 10, 1792.
2. In order to prevent the running of interest on the advance payments of the French debt, H had agreed to make payments from the Treasury at the dates when money for Santo Domingo was needed (Frederick J. Turner, ed., “Correspondence of the French Ministers to the United States, 1791–1797,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1903 [Washington, 1904], II, 91, 92, 157).
3. Antoine René Charles Mathurin de La Forest, who had served in the French legation in the United States during the American Revolution, was made French vice consul at Savannah in 1783. He assumed the duties of consul general in 1785 and was officially appointed to the post on March 2, 1792.