To John Jay from Jacques, Louis, and Laurent Le Couteulx and Company, 3 October 1780
From Jacques, Louis, and Laurent Le Couteulx and Company1
Cadiz 3d. October 1780.
Our Supplies for the American Sailors amount to this Day to Rle p. 1978 12 L2 We will continue to render them every Service in our Power, but will confess you ingenuously, that if you don’t furnish us with an order from Congress, by which you impower us to oblige all American Captains who come here to take a certain quantity of People, Vizt. In proportion to their bulk, frank of passage, and afterwards so many more, in paying them a certain Sum for their Provisions, we advance nothing. As all the Captains who come here never fail of good motives for not taking any of their fellow Countrymen without paying them a Passage, which forces us to let the People go on board of Neutral Vessels, and instead of fulfilling your views of sending them back, as soon as possible, it is means that they get still farther from it, and great many engage in the English Service.3
1. Embedded in JJ to the President of Congress, 6 Nov., below. 1. Jacques, Louis, and Laurent Le Couteulx and Company was the Cádiz branch of Le Couteulx and Company of Paris.
2. This notation indicates 1,978 reales de plata and 12 quartos, or approximately £41 sterling. The editors thank John J. McCusker for his assistance with this passage.
3. JJ replied to this letter on 15 Oct., below. In a letter of 28 May 1781, below, the president of Congress informed JJ that Congress could not oblige captains of private vessels to take on American seamen and instructed JJ to continue to provide for their needs as best he could. For a proposal from Robert Morris, see his letter to JJ of 9 July 1781, below. For BF’s appraisal of the sea captains and of improvident seamen, see his letter to JJ of 20 Aug. 1781, below.