as post day, I signed and sent you the bill before I had received the
money. These are the facts, and it seems two favors are to be argued
from them. First, that you did not scruple my signature, or in other
words, that you took my bill. To this I answer, that you had no reason
to doubt its being honored. All my former ones had been duly paid. Nor
could you or others produce a single instance, in which my signature
had not justified the confidence reposed in it. Secondly, that by
sending you the bill before you had sent me the money for it, I gave
you an opportunity of keeping the money, and giving my public account
credit for it, and that in not taking this advantage you did me a
favor.

"After having agreed to purchase this bill, and pay me the money for
it, you could have no right to detain it. And surely, Sir, you need
not be informed, that there is a wide distinction between acts of
common justice and acts of friendship. I remember that there was then
but little demand for bills on Paris, and so far as you may have been
induced to take this one, from regard to my convenience, I am obliged
to you.

"4thly. _That by your agency you accelerated the payment of the
twentysix thousand dollars._

"I really believe, Sir, that you did accelerate it, and you would
have received my thanks for it, if the unusual and very particular
manner, in which the order for that payment was expressed, had not
been less consistent with delicacy, than with those improper fears and
apprehensions, which the confidence due to my private as well as
public character, ought to have excluded from your imagination. All
the preceding orders, which had been given on similar occasions,
directed the money to be paid to me. But in this instance, as I owed
you a considerable balance, care was taken that the twentysix thousand
dollars should not, as formerly, be paid to me, but to you on my
account.

"5thly. _That you offered to make me further advances, if either the
Ambassador of France or the Minister of State would give you a
positive order for the purpose, which you say they constantly
refused._

"It is true, Sir, that you offered to supply me with money to pay my
acceptances for the month of March, provided the Minister of State or
the Ambassador of France would engage to see you repaid with interest,
within a certain number of months, sometimes saying that you would be
content to be repaid within seven months, and at others within ten or
tw