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

MESSRS. WILLINK AND OTHERS TO JOHN ADAMS. ( Without Date. ) - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799) [1853]

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. 8.

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

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MESSRS. WILLINK AND OTHERS TO JOHN ADAMS.

(Without Date.)

Sir,—

We have had the honor to receive your most esteemed favor of the day before yesterday, and observe with pleasure that your Excellency agrees to the alteration which we have proposed by our last in the plan of a new loan.

We had this morning a conference with the brokers, which was proposed for to have the answer of the undertakers, and in which we expected the matter should be quite regulated. But it is with a great displeasure that we were obliged to remit the conclusion till next Monday, and that we are in the necessity to give you again such a disagreeable account. The undertakers agree with us in the opinion, that the loan will have a very good success by a public subscription, but they do not incline to run the risk of it for the whole amount. They only offer to engage to a million or something more; but we could not possibly succeed to determine them to double the sum; and because it is your absolute order, that either all the bills must be paid, or all return, we could not accept their offers; and, in case your Excellency do not incline in this situation to accommodate yourself to the circumstance, we fear all our endeavors will tend to no purpose. We feel how disagreeable it is to your Excellency, but we beg to submit to your consideration, that the engagement for a million will furnish us the money to pay the first drafts, and that we have a good prospect that the loan will be carried to the whole capital of two millions, or at least to such an amount, that, before the other drafts become due, we shall have money to pay them all. However, in case this should not answer our wishes, you will please to consider, that for a sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand guilders which were drawn at one hundred and fifty days’ sight, and which by consequence must be paid in the month of May, Mr. Morris took an arrangement, that, in case they might return unpaid, congress should not pay any charges attending the return, and that, by consequence, whenever this should be the case, which we flatter ourselves will not happen, the disappointment will be less fatal.

In these circumstances, we venture to advise your Excellency to give us orders by your answer to this, that we may Monday accept the offer of the undertakers for a million, or so much more as they then will engage, and to open the loan for two millions upon the plan which you have approved, and then we will be certain to pay the first drafts, and have a good prospect likewise to pay the following, notwithstanding we have not the satisfaction to have the same certitude about it.

We beg to give us your answer upon these proposals by the morrow evening post, and have the honor to remain, very respectfully, sir, your most humble, &c.

Wilhem and Jan Willink,

Nic. and Jacob Van Staphorst,

De la Lande and Fynje.