g on us for other occasions. We have already paid
of Congress's drafts, to returned officers, 82,211 livres; and we know
not how much more of that kind we have to pay, because the committee
have never let us know the amount of those drafts, or their account of
them never reached us, and they still continue coming in. And we are now
surprised with drafts from Mr. B. for 100,000 more. If you reduce us to
bankruptcy here by a non-payment of your drafts, consider the
consequences. In my humble opinion no drafts should be made on us
without first learning from us that we shall be able to answer them."

Congress could not fairly exact great accuracy from the drawees of its
bills, when it never took pains to give notice of the facts of the
drawing, of the number of bills drawn, of dates, or amounts; in a word,
really gave no basis for account-keeping or identification. No more
helter-skelter way of conducting business has ever been seen since
modern business methods were invented. The system, if system it may be
called, would have been aggravating and confusing enough under any
condition of attendant circumstances; but it so happened that all
attendant circumstances tended to increase rather than to mitigate the
difficulties created by the carelessness of Congress. One naturally
fancies that a nation deals in few and large transactions, that these
drafts may have been for inconveniently large sums, but that at least
they probably were not numerous. The precise contrary was the case. The
drafts were countless, and often were for very petty amounts, much as if
a prosperous merchant were drawing cheques to pay his ordinary expenses.
Further, the uncertainty of the passage across the Atlantic led to these
bills appearing at all sorts of irregular times; seconds often came to
hand before firsts, and thirds before either; the bills were often very
old when presented. Knaves took advantage of these facts fraudulently to
alter seconds and thirds into firsts, so that extreme care had to be
taken to prevent constant duplication and even triplication of payments.
It would have taken much of the time of an experienced banker's clerk to
keep the bill and draft department in correct shape. It is not
improbable that Congress lost a good deal of money by undetected
rascalities, but if so the fault lay with that body itself, not with
Franklin.

Amid the harassments of these demands, Franklin was much vexed by the
conduct of Arthur Lee and Iza