or it would
look as if he doubted M. Del Campo's attention to it. Mr Carmichael
informed me at the same time, that M. Cabarrus' manner appeared
changed and somewhat embarrassed.

On the morning of the 15th of March, I waited on the Ambassador. He
promised to speak to the Minister that morning to obtain his final
answer, and if possible to render it favorable. On his return from the
Pardo, he wrote me the following letter.

Translation.

"March 15th, 1782.

"Sir,

"I have just come from the Pardo. The Count de Florida Blanca had not
received your letter of yesterday, but I supplied the deficiency by
explaining to him your critical and difficult situation. He told me
that you might accept the drafts to the amount of fifty thousand
dollars, provided M. Cabarrus remains in the same disposition he has
displayed hitherto, relative to the time he would wait for the
reimbursement of the sums he has advanced, for this purpose. You can,
therefore, make an arrangement with M. Cabarrus for the acceptance of
the bills to the amount of forty or fifty thousand dollars, and show
him this note as his security.

"I hope that this sum will relieve you from your present
embarrassment, and give you time to adopt measures for meeting the
bills, which shall hereafter become due.

"Although this information is not so fully satisfactory as I could
wish, I take pleasure in communicating it to you, with assurances of
my sincere and inviolable attachment.

THE COUNT DE MONTMORIN."

You will doubtless think with me it was very extraordinary, that the
Minister should not have received my letter sent him yesterday by the
Court courier. Why and by whose means it was kept back can only be
conjectured. Had not the Ambassador's application supplied the want of
it, a pretext for the Minister's silence would thence have arisen. The
letter did not in fact miscarry, for the Minister afterwards received
it. The Minister's caution in making his becoming engaged for the
advances in question to depend on M. Cabarrus' persisting in the same
dispositions he had lately declared, relative to the time he would be
content to wait for a reimbursement, is somewhat singular, considering
that his offers on that head had been repeatedly and explicitly
communicated to the Minister, and to the Ambassador of France, both by
him and b