MCCXXXV

FROM JOHN JAY

BATH, 26 December, 1783. DEAR SIR: Since we parted I have been so much and so long indisposed, as that, except short letters to Mrs. Jay, I have denied myself the pleasure of writing to my friends. The kindness you have shown to us both has, nevertheless, not been forgotten, nor has my disposition to acknowledge and be influenced by it in the least abated.

We have lately had a report here that you were very ill with the stone; and some have said that you intended to seek relief from an operation. This report has alarmed your friends, and I am anxious to know how far it may be well founded. It would give me sincere satisfaction to have it contradicted under your own hand.

I decline saying any thing about politics for obvious reasons. The public papers afford you the means of forming a judgment of them, especially as your long experience and knowledge of this country enable you to see further than ordinary observers. There are many in this country who speak of you with great respect. The honest Whig Club drank your health very affectionately. There are others, who like you as little as the eagle did the cat, and probably for the same reasons. When we meet we will talk these matters over with less reserve than I can write. Present my affectionate compliments to your two grandsons, and believe me to be, with great esteem and regard, dear sir, etc.,

JOHN JAY.

MCCXXXVI

TO THOMAS MIFFLIN, PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS

PASSY, 26 December, 1783.

DEAR SIR:-I congratulate you very sincerely on your appointment to that very honorable station, the Presidency of Congress. Every testimony you receive of the public sense of your services and talents gives me pleasure.

I have written to you a long letter on business, in my quality of minister. This is a private letter, respecting my personal concerns, which I presume to trouble you with on the score of our ancient friendship.

In a letter of the 12th of March, 1781, I stated my age and infirmities to the Congress, and requested they would be pleased to recall me, that I might enjoy the little left me of the evening of life in repose, and in the sweet society of my friends and family. I was answered by the then President that, when peace should be made, if I persisted in the same request, it should be granted; I acquiesced; the preliminaries were signed in November, 1782, and I then repeated my petition. A year is past, and I have no answer. Undoubtedly, if the Congress should think my continuing here necessary for the public service, I ought, as a good citizen, to submit to their judgment and pleasure; but, as they may easily supply my place to advantage, that cannot be the case. I suppose, therefore, that it is merely the multiplicity of more important affairs that has put my request out of

'See a letter to Robert R. Livingston, dated December 5, 1782.

their mind. What I would then desire of you is, to put this matter in train to be moved and answered as soon as possible, that I may arrange my affairs accordingly.

In the first letter above mentioned, to which I beg leave to refer you, I gave a character of my grandson, William Temple Franklin, and solicited for him the favor and protection of Congress. I have nothing to abate of that character; on the contrary, I think him so much improved as to be capable of executing, with credit to himself and advantage to the public, any employment in Europe the Congress may think fit to honor him with. He has been seven years in the service, and is much esteemed by all that know him, particularly by the minister here, who, since my new disorder (the stone) makes my going to Versailles inconvenient to me, transacts our business with him in the most obliging and friendly manner. It is natural for me, who love him, to wish to see him settled, before I die, in some employ that may probably be permanent; and I hope you will be so good to me as to get that affair likewise moved and carried through in his favor.

He has, I think, this additional merit to plead, that he has served in my office as secretary several years, for the small salary of three hundred louis a year, while the Congress gave one thousand a year to the secretaries of other ministers, who had not half the employ for a secretary that I had. For it was long before a consul was sent here, and we had all that business on our hands, with a great deal of admiralty business in examining and condemning captures

taken by our cruisers and by the French cruisers under American commissions; besides the constant attendance in examining and recording the acceptances of the Congress bills of exchange, which has been, from the immense number, very fatiguing; with many other extra affairs not usually occurring to other ministers, such as the care of the prisoners in England, and the constant correspondence relating to them; in all of which he served me as secretary, with the assistance only of a clerk at low wages (fifty louis a year), so that the saving has been very considerable to the public. I am, etc.,

B. FRANKLIN.

MCCXXXVII

TO THE REV. DR. COOPER

PASSY, 26 December, 1783.

DEAR SIR: I have received your favor of the 16th October, and am much obliged for the intelligence it contains. I am happy to hear that your government has agreed to furnish Congress with the means of discharging the national debt. The obstruction that measure met with in some of the States has had many mischievous effects on this side the water. It discouraged the loan going on in Holland, and thereby occasioned a protest of some of Mr. Morris' bills. Nothing can recover our credit in Europe and our reputation in its courts, but an immediate proof of our honesty and prudence by a general provision in all the States for the punctual

payment of the interest and the final regular discharge of the principal. I hope we shall never deserve, nor any longer appear likely to deserve, the reproof given to an enthusiastical knave in Pennsylvania, who being called upon for an old debt, said to his creditor: Thou must have a little more patience; I am not able yet to pay thee. Give me then your bond, says the creditor, and pay me interest. No, I cannot do that; I cannot in conscience either receive or pay interest, it is against my principle. You have then the conscience of a rogue, says the creditor: You tell me it is against your principle to pay interest; and it being against your interest to pay the principal, I perceive you do not intend to pay me either one or t' other.

My young friend, your grandson, must have had a long passage, since he was not arrived when you wrote. Indeed all the vessels that left Europe for America about the time he did have had long passage which makes me less uneasy on his account. I hope he is in your arms long before this time. His father never made any provision here for his return, that I have heard of, and therefore I have drawn on you for the balance of the account as you directed.

I wrote you a too long letter some time since, respecting Mr. A.'s calumnies, of which perhaps it was not necessary to take so much notice.

The government of England is again disordered: the Lords have rejected the ministry's favorite bill for demolishing the power of the India Company. The Commons have resented it by some angry resolutions. And it is just now reported here that the