rst cost is 18 sols per lb. or 10d
sterling; the charges will be added; the amount I have not as yet
ascertained, and interest at five per cent until payment. I must again
urge you to hasten your remittances. Tobacco, rice, indigo, wheat, and
flour are in great demand, and must be so through the year. Tobacco is
nine stivers per lb. in Holland, rice 50s sterling per cwt. Flour is
already from 20 to 23 livres per cwt. and rising. I have engaged a
sale for 20,000 hogsheads of tobacco, the amount of which will
establish the credit of the Congress with the mercantile interest in
France and Holland.

Let me urge your attention to these articles, though I must say your
silence ever since the 5th of last June discourages me at times.
Indeed it well nigh distracts me. From whatever cause the silence has
happened, it has greatly prejudiced the affairs of the United Colonies
of America; and so far as the success of our cause depended on the
friendship and aid of powers on this side the globe, it has occasioned
the greatest hazard and danger, and thrown me into a state of anxiety
and perplexity, which no words can express. I have made one excuse
after another, until my invention is exhausted, and when I find
vessels arriving from different ports in America, which sailed late in
August, without a line for me, it gives our friends here apprehensions
that the assertions of our enemies, who say you are negotiating and
compounding, are true; otherwise, say they, where are your letters and
directions? Surely, they add, if the Colonies were in earnest, and
unanimous in their Independence, even if they wanted no assistance
from hence, common civility would cause them to announce in form their
being Independent States.

I will make no other comment on the distressing subject than this;
were there no hopes of obtaining assistance on application in a public
manner, I should be easier under your silence, but when the reverse is
the case, to lose the present critically favorable moment, and hazard
thereby the ruin of the greatest cause in which mankind were ever
engaged, distresses my soul, and I would if possible express something
of what I have undergone for the last three months, until hope itself
has almost deserted me. I do not complain for myself, but for my
country, thus unaccountably suffering from I know not what causes.

I am, gentlemen, with most respectful compliments to the Congress, &c.