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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO ROBERT MORRIS. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 7 (Letters and State Papers 1777-1782) [1852]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 7.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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TO ROBERT MORRIS.

Sir,

Yesterday M. le Couteulx called upon me in order to communicate to me the contents of his letters from you concerning the remittance of the money from Holland. I told him he must write to Messrs. Willink, &c., the directors of the loan, upon the subject, and that the whole matter being under your direction, you and the bankers must negotiate it. He said your desires could easily be complied with, and very advantageously for the United States. He had written to the Doctor, and received an answer that he could not yet say whether he could comply or not. Soon after, Mr. Grand came in to show me your letter of credit upon Messrs. Willink, &c., and showed me a state of his accounts, by which he would be a million of livres in advance, after paying the interest of the ten millions of livres borrowed by the King in Holland.

This morning I went out to Passy to consult with the Doctor about your letters. He told me he was preparing a memorial to the King, as strong as he could pen, but could not foresee what would be his success.

There are great complaints of scarcity of money here, and what there is is shut up. The King’s loans do not fill. The war has lasted so long, and money has been scattered with so much profusion, that it is now very scarce in France, Spain, and England, as well as Holland. If I could quit the negotiations for peace, and return to the Hague, I have great doubts of success with the states-general; and an application to them which must be taken ad referendum, become the subject of deliberations, and be drawn out into an unknown length, and perhaps never obtain an unanimity, which is indispensable, would immediately cast a damp upon my loan already opened, or any other that I might open in the same way, perhaps put an entire stop to it. So that, after reflecting on the subject as maturely as I can, it seems to me safest to trust to the loan already opened. The influence of such an application to the states, in a political view, upon England and the neutral powers, would not be favorable.

The measure you have taken in drawing the money out of Holland will have an unfavorable effect. A principal motive to lend us has been to encourage a trade between us and them; but when they find that none of the money is to be laid out there in goods, I fear we shall get little more.

If I were to lay a memorial before their High Mightinesses, and had authority to propose a treaty to borrow a sum of money and pay the interest annually in tobacco, rice, or other produce of America, delivered at Amsterdam, and to pay the capital off in the same manner, I am not very clear in my expectations of success. But I have no instructions for this, nor do I know that congress would approve it.

In short, sir, I can give you no hopes, nor make any promises, but to do as well as I can.

With the greatest respect, &c.

John Adams.