you still more is, that public credit has again reared
its head. Our bank paper is in equal estimation with specie. Nothing
can be more agreeable than to see the satisfaction with which people
bring their money to the bank, and take out paper; or the joy mixed
with surprise with which some, who have hesitatingly taken bank bills
for the first time, see that they can turn them into specie at their
option.

Whether Spain wishes for peace or war, it is certainly her interest to
push the enemy where they are most vulnerable, and where she can do it
with the smallest expense to herself, and the greatest to her enemy.
Every additional man she enables us to maintain here, forces Britain
to lay out four times as much in procuring, transporting, and feeding
another to oppose him. It has been acknowledged in the British House
of Commons, that every man in America costs the nation annually one
hundred pounds sterling. Though this may appear exorbitant, yet
whoever reflects on the first expense of raising and transporting a
regiment, and the additional charge of sending over recruits to make
up deficiencies, and that of sending provisions to an army and its
innumerable dependants three thousand miles, will think it deserves
some degree of credit. It is obvious then as nations are only strong
in proportion to the money they can command, that every thousand men
we oblige the British to maintain here must make a diminution of their
strength in some other quarter, equal to three times that number.

Enclosed you have copies of two original letters from Mr Deane, in
which he acknowledges others that Rivington has published, which speak
a still more dangerous language. No doubt is entertained here of his
apostacy, or of his endeavor to weaken the efforts of the United
States, and to traduce the character of the people and their rulers,
both in Europe and America. You will doubtless use every means in your
power to destroy the ill effects, which his calumnies may have had
upon the minds of people with you. I enclose you the gazettes, and
again entreat you to let us hear from you more frequently, and to
leave letters at all times at Cadiz, and in the hands of our Consul in
France, so that no vessel may sail without bringing us some
intelligence. The last letter we had from you is dated in September,
near five months ago. I dare say this has been owing to some
accidental cause, and I only mention it, that you may guard against it
by writin