had already over and over again provided for and furnished us, was
extremely awkward." One would think so, indeed! So he fell back on a
"_general_ application" made some time before, and received naturally
the general answer that France herself was being put to enormous
expenses, which were aiding the States as efficiently as a direct loan
of money could do. The most he could extort was the king's guaranty for
the payment of the interest on $3,000,000, provided that sum could be
raised in Holland. The embarrassing fact was that the plea of poverty
advanced by the French government was perfectly valid. Turgot said so,
and no man knew better than Turgot. He had lately told the king that
even on a peace footing the annual expenditures exceeded the annual
receipts of the exchequer by 20,000,000 livres; and he even talked
seriously of an avowal of national bankruptcy. The events preceding the
French Revolution soon proved that this great statesman did not
exaggerate the ill condition of affairs. Yet instead of practicing rigid
prudence and economy, France had actually gone into a costly war for the
benefit of America. It was peculiarly disagreeable to be ceaselessly
appealing for money to an impoverished friend.

Another vexation was found in the way in which the agents of the various
individual States soon began to scour Europe in quest of money. First
they applied to Franklin, and "seemed to think it his duty as minister
for the United States to support and enforce their particular demands."
But the foreigners, probably not understanding these separate
autonomies, did not relish these requisitions, and Franklin found that
he could do nothing. On the contrary, he was hampered in effecting loans
on the national credit; for these state agents, hurrying clamorously
hither and thither, gave an impression of poverty and injured the
reputation of the country, which, indeed, was already low enough upon
the exchanges without any such gratuitous impairment.

February 19, 1780, there was an application from John Paul Jones for
money for repairs on his ships. Franklin approved keeping the vessels in
serviceable condition, but added: "Let me repeat, for God's sake be
sparing, unless you mean to make me a bankrupt, or have your drafts
dishonored for want of money in my hands to pay them."

May 31, 1780, he complains that he has been reproached by one of the
congressional agents whose unauthorized drafts he had refused. He has
been dra