would render debts desperate, which are good in themselves. I think we should not have differed in

the term necessary. We differed essentially in the article of interest. For while the principal & interest preceding & subsequent to the war seems justly due from us, that which incurred during the war does not. Interest is a compensation for the use of money. Their money in our hands was in the form of lands & negroes. Tobacco, the produce of these lands and negroes (or as I may call it, the interest of them) being almost impossible of conveyance to the markets of consumption, because taken by themselves in it's way there, sold during the war at 5/ or 6/ the hundred. This did not pay tools, taxes, & other plantation charges. A man who should have attempted to remit to his creditor tobacco for either principal or interest, must have remitted it three times before one would have arrived safe: and this from the depredations of their own nation, and often of the creditor himself, for some of the merchants entered deeply into the privateering business. The individuals who did not, say they have lost this interest: the debtor replies that he has not gained, & that it is a case where a loss having incurred, every one tries to shift it from himself. The known bias of the human mind from motives of interest, should lessen the confidence of each party in the justice of their reasoning; but it is difficult to say which of them should make the sacrifice both of reason & interest. Our conferences were intended as preparatory to some arrangement. It is incertain how far we should have been able to accommo

date our opinions. But the absolute aversion of the government to enter into any arrangement prevented the object from being pursued. Each country is left to do justice to itself & to the other according to its own ideas, as to what is past, and to scramble for the future as well as they can to regulate their commerce by duties and prohibitions, and perhaps by cannons & mortars; in which event we must abandon the ocean where we are weak, leaving to neutral nations the carriage of our commodities : & measure with them on land where they alone can lose. Farewell then all our useful improvements of canals, roads, reformations of laws & other rational emploiments. I really doubt whether there is temper enough on either side to prevent this issue of our present hatred. Europe is at this moment without the appearance of a cloud. The death of the K of Prussia, daily expected, may raise one. My paper admonishes me that after asking a continuance of your favors, it is time for me to conclude with assurances of the esteem with which I am Dr Sir, your friend & servt.

TO JAMES MONROE.

J. MSS.

PARIS, May 10, 1786.

DEAR SIR, My last to you was of Jan. 27. Since that I have received yours of Jan. 19. Information from other quarters gives me reasons to suspect you have in negotiation a very important change in your situation. You will carry into the execution all my

wishes for your happiness. I hope it will not detach you from a settlement in your own country. I had even entertained hopes of your settling in my neighborhood but these were determined by your desiring a plan of a house for Richmond. However reluctantly I relinquish this prospect, I shall not the less readily obey your commands by sending you a plan. Having been much engaged since my return from England in answering the letters & despatching other business which had accumulated during my absence, & being still much engaged, perhaps I may not be able to send the plan by this conveyance. If I do not send it now, I will surely by the first conveiance after this. Your Encyclopedie, containing 18 livraisons, went off last night for Havre, from whence it will go in a vessel bound to N. York. It will be under the care of M. la Croix a passenger, who, if he does not find you in N. York will carry it to Virginia. I send it to Richmond. Another copy in a separate box, goes for Currie. I pay here all charges to N. York. What may occur afterwards I desire him to ask either of you or Currie, as either will pay for the other, or to draw on me for them. My letters to Mr. Jay will inform you of the objects which carried me to England: and that the principal one, the treaty with Portugal has been accomplished. Tho' we were unable to procure any special advantages in that, yet we thought it of consequence to insure our trade againt those particular checks and discouragements which it has heretofore met with there. The information as to the Barbary states, which we ob

tained from Abdrahaman the Tripoline ambassador was also given to Mr. Jay. If it be right, & the scale of proportion between those nations which we had settled be also right, eight times the sum required by Tripoli will be necessary to accomplish a peace with the whole, that is to say about two hundred and fifty thousand guineas. The continuance of this peace will depend on their idea of our power to enforce it, and on the life of the particular Dey or other head of the government, with whom it is contracted. Congress will no doubt weigh these circumstances against the expense & probable success of compelling a peace by arms. Count d'Estaing having communicated to me verbally some information as to an experiment formerly made by this country, I shall get him to put it into writing and I will forward it to Congress, as it will aid them in their choice of measures. According to this a force, which after the first outfit, might cost about three thousand guineas a month sufficed in a short time. However, which plan is eligible can only be known to ourselves who are on the spot & have under your view all the difficulties of both. There is a third measure: that of abandoning the Mediterranean carriage to other nations. With respect to England no arrangements can be taken. The merchants were certainly disposed to have consented to accommodation as to the article of debts. I was not certain when I left England that they would relinquish the interest during the war. A letter received since from the first character among the American merchants in Scotland satisfies me they would have re

linquished it to insure the capital & residue of interest. Would to heaven all the states therefore would settle on a uniform plan. To open the courts to them so that they might obtain judgments, to divide the executions into so many equal annual instalments as that the last might be paid in the year 1790, to have the paiments in actual money, and to include the capital & interest preceding & subsequent to the war, would give satisfaction to the world, and to the merchants in general. Since it is left for each nation to pursue their own measures in the execution of the late treaty, may not Congress with propriety recommend a mode of executing that article respecting the debts, and send it to each state to be passed into law. Whether England gives up the posts or not, these debts must be paid, or our character stained with infamy among all nations & to all times. As to the satisfaction for slaves carried off, it is a bagatelle which if not made good before the last instalment becomes due, may be secured out of that.

I formerly communicated the overtures for a treaty which had been made by the Imperial ambassador. The instructions from Congress being in their favor, and Mr. Adams's opinion also, I encouraged them. He expected his full powers when I went to England. Yet I did not think, nor did Mr. Adams, that this was of importance enough to weigh against the objects of that journey. He received them soon after my departure, & communicated it to me on my return, asking a copy of our propositions. I gave him one,