The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume VIII Part 11

"With sincerest regard, I am, &c. &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

"_P. S._ The Marquis de Lafayette has your letter."

I answered this letter as follows, by a French courier.

"Madrid, March 19th, 1782.

"Dear Sir,

"On the 18th instant I informed you of my having been reduced, by M.

Cabarrus' want of good faith, to the mortifying necessity of protesting a number of bills, which were then payable.

"Your favor of the 16th instant reached me three days ago. It made me very happy, and enabled me to retrieve the credit we had lost here by those protests. I consider your letter as giving me sufficient authority to take the necessary arrangements with the Marquis d'Yranda for paying the residue of my debts here, as well as such of the protested bills as may be returned for that purpose.

"The account you request of all the bills I have accepted is making out, and when finished shall be transmitted by the first good opportunity that may offer. You may rely on my best endeavors to render my drafts as little inconvenient to you as possible.

"The British Parliament, it seems, begin to entertain less erroneous ideas of us, and their resolutions afford a useful hint to the other powers in Europe. If the Dutch are wise, they will profit by it. As to this Court, their system (if their conduct deserves that appellation) with respect to us has been so opposite to the obvious dictates of sound policy, that it is hard to divine whether anything but experience can undeceive them. For my part, I really think that a treaty with them daily becomes less important to us.

"That Britain should be desirous of a separate peace with us is very natural, but as such a proposal implies an impeachment of our integrity, I think it ought to be rejected in such a manner as to show that we are not ignorant of the respect due to our feelings on that head. As long as France continues faithful to us, I am clear that we ought to continue hand in hand to prosecute the war until all their, as well as all our, reasonable objects can be obtained by a peace, for I would rather see America ruined than dishonored. As to Spain and Holland, we have as yet no engagements with them, and therefore are not obliged to consult either their interest or their inclinations, further than may be convenient to ourselves, or than the respect due to our good allies may render proper.

"France, in granting you six millions, has acted with dignity as well as generosity. Such gifts, so given, command both grat.i.tude and esteem, and I think our country possesses sufficient magnanimity to receive and remember such marks of friendship with a proper degree of sensibility. I am pleased with your idea of paying whatever we owe to Spain. Their pride, perhaps, might forbid them to receive the money.

But our pride has been so hurt by the littleness of their conduct, that I would in that case be for leaving it at the gate of the palace, and quit the country. At present such a step would not be expedient, though the time will come when prudence, instead of restraining, will urge us to hold no other language or conduct to this Court than that of a just, a free, and a brave people, who have nothing to fear from, nor to request of them.

"I am, &c. &c.

JOHN JAY."

On receiving Dr Franklin's letter I sent for my good friend the notary, and desired him to make it known among the bankers, that I had received supplies equal to all my occasions, and was ready to pay to every one his due. He received the commission with as much pleasure as I had the letter. He executed it immediately, and our credit here was re-established.

M. Cabarrus became displeased with himself, and took pains to bring about a reconciliation by the means of third persons, to whom I answered, that as a Christian I forgave him, but as a prudent man, could not again employ him. As this gentleman has suddenly risen into wealth and importance, and is still advancing to greater degrees of both, I shall insert a letter, which I wrote in reply to one from him on the subject.

TO M. CABARRUS.

"Madrid, April 2d, 1782.

"Sir,

"I have received the letter you did me the honor to write on the 29th of March last.

"As soon as the examination of your accounts shall be completed, I shall be ready to pay the balance 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.

"Although 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 ent.i.tled to that appellation. I shall review them in their order. You remind me,

"1st. _That you risked the making me considerable advances, at a time when I could only give you hopes, and not formal a.s.surances of repayment._

"I acknowledge freely and with grat.i.tude, 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, and I had reason to expect supplies to a far greater amount, I conceived, and the event has shown, that you did not run any great risk, although the uncertainty of the time when these supplies would be afforded, prevented my giving you positive and formal a.s.surances of the time and manner of repayment.

"2dly. _That you augmented these advances to quiet the demands of the Marquis d'Yranda._

"Permit me to remind you, that this circ.u.mstance might have been more accurately stated. The fact was as follows. I had received 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. 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 detaining 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 receive, credit for merely forbearing to do a dishonorable action.

"3dly. _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 balance then due to you._

"The transaction you allude to was as follows. I had authority to draw from his Excellency, Dr Franklin, on account of my salary. It happened to be convenient to me to draw for a quarter. You agreed to purchase my bill on him, and to pay me in specie at the current exchange. As it was post day, I signed and sent you the bill before I had received the money. These are the facts, and it seems two favors are to be argued from them. First, 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. Secondly, 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.

"4thly. _That by your agency you accelerated the payment of the twentysix thousand dollars._

"I really believe, Sir, that you did accelerate it, and you would have received my thanks for it, if the unusual and 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 balance, care was taken that the twentysix thousand dollars should not, as formerly, be paid to me, but to you on my account.

"5thly. _That you offered to make me further advances, if either the Amba.s.sador 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 Amba.s.sador 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, and you repeated this offer to me in these precise terms on the 11th of March last.

"This offer was friendly. I accepted it with grat.i.tude, and in full confidence that you would punctually perform what you had thus freely promised. I accordingly made this offer known to the Minister, and solicited his consent. On the 15th day of March he authorised the Amba.s.sador of France to inform me, that you might advance me from forty to fifty thousand current dollars on those terms. The Amba.s.sador 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 and 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, and insisting that the bills should either be paid or protested.

"The Minister rejected these new conditions, and you refused to abide by the former ones. The bills were then due. I had no time even to look out for other resources, and thereby was reduced to the necessity of protesting them.

"Such conduct, Sir, can have no pretensions to grat.i.tude, and affords a much more proper subject for apology than for approbation. I confess that I was no less surprised than disappointed, and still remain incapable of reconciling these deviations from the rules of fair dealing, with that open and manly temper which you appear to possess, and 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, though 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 were well attached to the interests of my country, and I present you my thanks for having on several former occasions endeavored to promote it.

"I am, &c. &c.

JOHN JAY."

As M. Cabarrus was concerned in contracts with government for money, and was the projector of several of their ways and means for supplying the Royal Treasury, it appeared to me expedient that he should wish us well, and be our banker. Some advantages have arisen from it, and they would probably have been greater, if not opposed by the great and unfriendly influence of M. Del Campo. At the same time that I blame M.

Cabarrus, I cannot but pity him, for there is much reason to consider him in the light of the _scape goat_.

I have now employed Messrs Drouilhet to do our business; that house is one of the most considerable here in the banking way.

I showed Dr Franklin's letter to the Amba.s.sador of France, and made him my acknowledgments for the generous supply afforded by his Court to ours. He seemed very happy on the occasion, and regretted it had not been done a little sooner.

His secretary remarked to me, that Spain would suspect that this subsidy had been granted in consequence of the protest of our bills, and that this Court would make it the cause of complaint against France.

The Court left the Pardo, and pa.s.sed the Easter holidays at Madrid. I denied myself the honor of waiting on the Minister on that occasion, nor have I seen him since the protest of our bills. My judgment, as well as my feelings, approved of this omission. The Court are now at Aranjues, where I have taken a house, and purpose to go soon after these despatches shall be completed.