answer
your drafts for interest, if that proposal of ours has been adopted.
Particularly we beg you will attend to the affair of tobacco for the
Farmers-General, with whom we have contracted to supply five thousand
hogsheads of tobacco, for which they have advanced us one million of
livres, in ready money, and are to pay the rest on delivery, as we
formerly advised you. Your vigorous exertions in these matters are the
more necessary, as during the apparent, or supposed uncertainty of our
affairs, the loan we were directed to obtain of two millions sterling
has hitherto been judged impracticable.

But if the present campaign should end favorably for us, perhaps we
may be able to accomplish it another year, as some jealousy begins to
be entertained of the English funds by the Dutch, and other monied
people of Europe, to the increase of which jealousy, we hope a
paper[41] we have drawn up, (a copy whereof we enclose) may in some
degree contribute when made public.

Mr Deane has written fully to you on the effect our cruisers have had
on the coast and commerce of Britain, which makes our saying much on
that head unnecessary.[42] We cannot, however, omit this opportunity
of expressing our satisfaction in the conduct of the Captains, and of
recommending them warmly to Congress. The ostensible letter and answer
from and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, copies of which we
enclose,[43] will show the conduct which the Court has thought, and
thinks itself at present obliged to hold with regard to our cruisers
and their prizes, of which it seems fit some notice should be given to
the several States. As the English goods cannot in foreign markets
face those of the French or Dutch, loaded as they are with the high
insurance from which their competitors are exempted, it is certain the
trade of Britain must diminish while she is at war with us, and the
rest of Europe in peace. To evade this mischief, she now begins to
make use of French bottoms; but as we have yet no treaty with France,
or any other power that gives to free ships the privilege of making
free goods, we may weaken that project, by taking the goods of the
enemy wherever we find them, paying the freight. And it is imagined
that the Captains of the vessels so freighted may, by a little
encouragement, be prevailed on to facilitate the necessary discovery.

Spain not having yet resolved to receive a minister from the Congress,
Mr Franklin still remains here. She has, ho