I have recieved the Letter you did me the Honor to write on the 29th of March last.1

As soon as the Examination of your accounts shall be compleated, I shall be ready to pay the Ballance that may be due to You, either here, or by Bills on Paris. I should also be no less ready to subscribe a general approbation of your Conduct, if the latter part of it had been equally fair and friendly with the first.

Altho’ it always affords me Pleasure to recollect and acknowledge acts of Friendship, Yet Sir! I can consider only one of the five Instances you enumerate as entitled to that appellation. I shall review them in their order. You remind me—

1st: That you risqued the making me considerable Advances at a Time when I could only give you Hopes, and not formal assurances, of Repayment.

I acknowledge freely and with Gratitude, that (exclusive of the Commissions due to You for paying out the various Sums I had placed in your Hands) you did advance me between twenty and thirty thousand Dollars; but as the United States of America were bound to repay it, & I had Reason to expect Supplies to a far greater amount, I concieved, and the Event has shewn, that You did not run any great Risque; altho the uncertainty of the Time when these Supplies would be afforded prevented my giving you positive & formal assurances of the Time and Manner of Repayment—

2d: That You augmented these advances to quiet the Demands of the Marquis de Yranda—

Permit me to remind You that this Circumstance might have been more accurately stated. The Fact was as follows— I had recieved about fifty thousand Dollars which, by a prior Contract, I had agreed to pay the Marquis on account of a greater Sum borrowed from him in Paper.2 The Sum in Question was in Specie— You and others offered to exchange it for Paper at the then current Difference. The Preference was given to You— Under that Confidence, and for that express Purpose, the Specie was sent to Your House; and You did exchange it accordingly. With what Propriety Sir! can you consider this Transaction in the Light of making advances, or lending me money to quiet the Marquis D. Yranda? It is true, that by sending the money to your House, I put it in your Power, by retaining Part of it, to repay yourself what you had before advanced—but Sir! such a Proceeding would have been a flagrant Breach of Trust; and I cannot think any Gentleman ought to give himself, or expect to recieve Credit, for merely forbearing to do a dishonourable Action—

3: That you gave me, on my Signature, the Money for which I applied to You, for my personal Use; without detaining any Part of it, on account of the Ballance then due to You—

The Transaction you allude to, was as follows— I had authority to draw from his Excy. Dr. Franklin, on account of my Salary. It happened to be convenient to me to draw for a Quarter.3 You agreed to purchase my Bill on him, & to pay me in Specie at the current Exchange. As it was post Day, I signed and sent you the Bill, before I had recieved the Money— These are the Facts, and it seems two Favors are to be argued from them.

(1) That you did not scruple my Signature, or, in other words, that you took my Bill—

To this I answer that you had no Reason to doubt its being honored— All my former ones had been duly paid—nor could you, or others, produce a single Instance in which my Signature had not justified the Confidence reposed in it—

(2) That by sending you the Bill, before You had sent me the money for it, I gave you an opportunity of keeping the money, and giving my public account Credit for it; and that in not taking this Advantage you did me a Favor.

After having agreed to purchase this Bill, and pay me the Money for it, you could have no Right to detain it. And surely Sir! you need not be informed, that there is a wide Distinction between Acts of common Justice, and acts of Friendship. I remember that there was then but little Demand for Bills on Paris, and so far as you may have been induced to take this one, from Regard to my Convenience, I am obliged to You—

4. That by your agency you accelerated the Payment of the 26′000 dollars—

I really believe Sir! that you did accelerate it, and you would have recieved my Thanks for it, if the unusual & very particular manner in which the Order for that Payment was expressed, had not been less consistent with Delicacy, than with those improper Fears and Apprehensions, which the Confidence due to my private as well as public Character, ought to have excluded from your Imagination. All the preceding orders, which had been given on similar occasions, directed the Money to be paid to me; but in this Instance, as I owed you a considerable Ballance, Care was taken that the 26′000 Dollars should b not, as formerly, be paid to me, but to You on my account—

5. That You offered to make me further advances if either the Embassador of France or the Minister of State would give you a positive order for the Purpose, which you say they constantly refused

It is true Sir! that you offered to supply me with Money to pay my acceptances for the Month of March, provided the Minister of State, or the Embassador of France, would engage to see you repaid with Interest, within a certain number of Months, sometimes saying that you would be content to be Repaid within seven Months and at others, within ten or twelve Months, & you repeated this offer to me in these precise Terms on the 11th. of March last—

This offer was friendly— I accepted it with Gratitude, and in full Confidence that you, would punctually perform what you had thus freely promised— I accordingly made this offer known to the Minister, & sollicited his Consent. On the 15 Day of March he authorized the Embassador of France to inform me, that you might advance me from 40 to 50 thousand current Dollars on those Terms. The Embassador signified this to me by Letter, and that Letter was immediately laid before You. Then Sir! for the first Time, did you insist on being repaid in four months, and that in four equal monthly Payments, secured by orders on the Rents of the Post Office, or on the general Treasury &c. &c. These Terms & Conditions were all new, and never hinted to me in the most distant manner, until after the Minister had agreed to your first offer, and until the very moment when the Holders of the Bills were demanding their Money, & insisting that the Bills should either be paid or protested.

The Minister rejected these new Conditions, & you refused to abide by the former ones. The Bills were then due— I had no Time even to look out for other Resources—& thereby was reduced to the necessity of protesting them.4

Such Conduct Sir! can have no Pretensions to Gratitude, & affords a much more proper Subject for Apology, than for Approbation. I confess that I was no less surprized than disappointed, and still remain incapable of reconciling these Deviations from the Rules of fair Dealing, with that open & manly Temper which you appear to possess, & which I thought would insure good Faith to all who relied on your Word.

How far your means might have failed, how far you might have been ill-advised or ill informed, or unduly influenced are Questions which tho not uninteresting to You, are now of little Importance to me—

I acknowledge with Pleasure that until these late singular Transactions I had Reason to believe you was well attached to the Interests of my Country, and I present You my Thanks for having on several former occasions, endeavoured to promote it—5 I am &c—