therefore comes out without a dose of paragraphs against America. These are calculated for a secondary purpose also, that of preventing the emigrations of their people to America. They dwell very much on American bankruptcies. To explain these would require a long detail, but would shew you that nine tenths of these bankruptcies are truly English bankruptcies in no wise chargeable on America. However they have produced effects the most desirable of all others for us. They have destroyed our credit & thus checked our disposition to luxury; & forcing our merchants to buy no more than they have ready money to pay for, they force them to go to those markets where that ready money will buy most. Thus you see they check our luxury, they force us to connect ourselves with all the world, & they prevent foreign emigrations to our country all of which I consider as advantageous to us. They are doing us another good turn. They attempt without disguise to possess themselves of the carriage of our produce, & to prohibit our own vessels from participating of it. This has raised a general indignation in America. The states see however that their constitutions have provided no means of counteracting it. They are therefore beginning to invest Congress with the absolute power of regulating their commerce, only reserving all revenue arising from it to the state in which it is levied. This will consolidate our federal building very much, and for this we shall be indebted to the British.

You ask what I think on the expediency of en

couraging our states to be commercial? Were I to indulge my own theory, I should wish them to practise neither commerce nor navigation, but to stand with respect to Europe precisely on the footing of China. We should thus avoid wars, and all our citizens would be husbandmen. Whenever indeed our numbers should so increase as that our produce would overstock the markets of those nations who should come to seek it, the farmers must either employ the surplus of their time in manufactures, or the surplus of our hands must be employed in manufactures, or in navigation. But that day would, I think be distant, and we should long keep our workmen in Europe, while Europe should be drawing rough materials & even subsistence from America. But this is theory only, & a theory which the servants of America are not at liberty to follow. Our people have a decided taste for navigation & commerce. They take this from their mother country: & their servants are in duty bound to calculate all their measures on this datum: we wish to do it by throwing open all the doors of commerce & knocking off its shackles. But as this cannot be done for others, unless they will do it for us, & there is no great probability that Europe will do this, I suppose we shall be obliged to adopt a system which may shackle them in our ports as they do us in theirs.

With respect to the sale of our lands, that cannot begin till a considerable portion shall have been surveyed. They cannot begin to survey till the fall of the leaf of this year, nor to sell probably till the

ensuing spring. So that it will be yet a twelvemonth before we shall be able to judge of the efficacy of our land office to sink our national debt. It is made a fundamental that the proceeds shall be solely & sacredly applied as a sinking fund to discharge the capital only of the debt. It is true that the tobaccos of Virginia go almost entirely to England. The reason is that they owe a great debt there which they are paying as fast as they can.-I think I have now answered your several queries, & shall be happy to receive your reflections on the same subjects, & at all times to hear of your welfare & to give you assurances of the esteem with which I have the honor to be Dear Sir your most obedient & most humble

servant.

TO N. AND J. VAN STAPHORST.

PARIS, Oct. 25. 1785.

GENTLEMEN,-I received yesterday your favor of the 20th inst. In order to give you the information you desire on the subject of the Liquidated debts of the United States, & the comparative footing on which they stand, I must observe to you that the first & great division of our federal debt is into 1. Foreign and 2. Domestic. The Foreign debt comprehends 1. the loan from the government of Spain. 2. the loans from the government of France & from the Farmers general. 3. the loans negotiated in Holland by order of Congress. This branch of our debt stands absolutely singular: no man in the United States having ever supposed that Congress or their

legislatures can in any wise modify or alter it. They justly view the United States as the one party & the lenders as the other & that the consent of both would be requisite were any modification to be proposed. But with respect to the Domestic debt, they consider Congress as representing both the borrowers & lenders, and that the modifications which have taken place in this, have been necessary to do justice between the two parties, & that they flowed properly from Congress as their mutual umpire. The Domestic debt comprehends 1. the army debt; 2. the Loan office debt. 3. the liquidated debt. & 4. the unliquidated debt. The 1st term includes debts to the officers & souldiers for pay, bounty & subsistence. The 2 term means moneis put into the loan-office of the United States. The 3 comprehends all debts contracted by quartermasters, commissaries, & others duly authorized to procure supplies for the army, and which have been liquidated (that is, settled) by commissioners appointed under the resolution of Congress of June 12. 1780. or by the officer who made the contract. The 4th comprehends the whole mass of debts described in the preceding article which have not yet been liquidated. These are in a course of liquidation, and are passing over daily into the 3o class. The debts of this 3a class, that is the liquidated debt is the object of your inquiry. No time is fixed for the payment of it, no fund is yet determined, nor any firm provision for the interest in the meantime. The consequence is that the certificates of these debts sell greatly below par. When I left

America they could be bought for from 2/6 to 15/ in the pound: this difference proceeding from the circumstance of some states having provided for paying the interest on those due in their own state, which others had not. Hence, an opinion had arisen with some, & propositions had even been made in the legislatures for paying off the principal of these debts with what they had cost the holder & interest on that. This opinion is far from being general, & I think will not prevail. But it is among possible events. I have been thus particular that you might be able to judge not only in the present case, but also in others, should any attempts be made to speculate in your city on these papers. It is a business in which foreigners will be in great danger of being duped. It is a science which bids defiance to the powers of reason. To understand it, a man must not only be on the spot, and be perfectly possessed of all the circumstances relative to every species of these papers, but he must have that dexterity which the habit of buying & selling them alone gives. The brokers of these certificates are few in number, and any other person venturing to deal with them engages in a very unequal contest.

TO PHILLIP MAZZEI.

J. MSS.

PARIS, Nov. ? 1785.

DEAR SIR,--You desire me to give you an idea of the Origin and Object of our Court of Chancery, the Limits of it's jurisdiction, and it's Tendency to render