BY THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, On the report of a committee to whom was referred a letter of the 14th October last from Dr. Franklin, so far as it relates to the mode of paying the salaries of the ministers and other officers of the United States in Europe. Resolved, That the salaries of the ministers and other officers of the United States in Europe be estimated in future in dollars, at the rate of four shillings and sixpence sterling per dollar. That they he paid in bills of exchange upon France or Holland at the rate of five livres, five sous per dollar, without regard to the variations which may be occasioned by the course of exchange. That these resolutions retrospect to the first day of January 1782, when the salaries of the said officers were made payable in America, and that the excess beyond the said net sum in bills of exchange, which has occurred or which shall accrue upon the quarter due on the first day of January last, be carried to the credit of the United States, and accounted for by the secretary for foreign affairs in the adjustment of the accounts of his department on the first day of April next. Extract from the Minutes, CHA. THOMSON, Sec'ry. Comparison of Great Britain and America as to Credit", in 1777. IN borrowing money a man's credit depends on some or all of the following particulars. First, His known conduct respecting former loans, and his punctuality in discharging them, Secondly, His industry. Thirdly, His frugality. ≈ This paper was written, translated, printed, and circulated, while Dr. Franklin was at the court of France, for the purpose of inducing foreigners to lend money to America in preference to Great Britain. Fourthly, The amount and the certainty of his income, and the freedom of his estate from the incumbrances of prior debts. Fifthly, His well founded prospects of greater future ability, by the improvement of his estate in value, and by aids from others. Sixthly, His known prudence in managing his general affairs, and the advantage they will probably receive from the loan which he desires. Seventhly, His known probity and honest character, manifested by his voluntary discharge of debts, which he could not have been legally compelled to pay. The circumstances which give credit to an individual ought to have, and will have, their weight upon the lenders of money to public bodies or nations. If then we consider and compare Britain and America, in these several particulars, upon the question, "To which is it safest to lend money?" We shall find, in 1772. 1. Respecting former loans, that America, which borrowed ten millions during the last war, for the maintenance of her army of 25,000 men and other charges, had faithfully discharged and paid that debt, and all her other debts, Whereas Britain, during those ten years of peace and profitable commerce, had made little or no reduction of her debt; but on the contrary, from time to time, diminishe ed the hopes of her creditors, by a wanton diversion and misapplication of the sinking fund destined for discharging it. 2. Respecting industry; every man in America is employed; the greater part in cultivating their own lands, the rest in handicrafts, navigation, and commerce. An idle man there is a rarity, idleness and inutility are disgraceful. In England the number of that character is immense, fashion has spread it far and wide; hence the embarrassments of private fortunes, and the daily bankruptcies arising from an universal fondness for appearance and expensive pleasures; and hence, in some degree, the mismanagement of public business; for habits of business, and ability in it, are acquired only by practice; and where universal dissipation, and the perpetual pursuit of amusement are the mode, the youth, educated in it, can rarely afterwards acquire that patient attention and close application to affairs, which are so necessary to a statesman charged with the care of national welfare. Hence their frequent errors in policy, and hence the weariness at public councils, and backwardness in going to them, the constant unwillingness to engage in any measure that requires thought and consideration, and the readiness for postponing every new proposition; which postponing is therefore the only part of business they come to be expert in, an expertness produced necessarily by so much daily practice. Whereas in America, men bred to close employment in their private affairs, attend with ease to those of the public, when engaged in them, and nothing fails through negligence. 3. Respecting frugality; the manner of living in America is more simple and less expensive than that in England: plain tables, plain clothing, and plain furniture in houses prevail, with few carriages of pleasure; there, an expensive appearance hurts credit, and is avoided: in England, it is often assumed to gain credit, and continued to ruin. Respecting public affairs, the difference is still greater. In England, the salaries of officers, and emoluments of office are enormous. The king has a million sterling per annum, and yet cannot maintain his family free of debt: secretaries of state, lords of treasury, admiralty, &c. have vast appointments: an auditor of the exchequer has sixpence in the pound, or a fortieth part of all the public money expended by the nation; so that when a war costs forty millions one million is paid to him: an inspector of the mint, in the last new coinage, received as his fee 65,000l. sterling per annum; to all which rewards no service these gentlemen can render the public is by any means equivalent. All this is paid by the people, who are oppressed by taxes so occasioned, and thereby rendered less able to contribute to the payment of necessary national debts. In America, salaries, where indispensible, are extremely low; but much of the U u public business is done gratis. The honor of serving the public ably and faithfully is deemed sufficient. Public spirit ,really exists there, and has great effects. In England it is universally deemed a nonentity, and whoever pretends to it is laughed at as a fool, or suspected as a knave. The committees of congress which form the board of war, the board of treasury, the board of foreign affairs, the naval board, that for accounts, &c. all attend the business of their respective functions, without any salary or emolument whatever, though they spend in it much more of their time than any lord of treasury or admiralty in England can spare from his amusements. A British minister lately computed, that the whole expence of the Americans, in their civil government over three millions of people amounted to bút 70,000l. sterling, and drew from thence a conclusion, that they ought to be taxed, until their expence was equal in proportion to that which it costs Britain to govern eight millions. He had no idea of a contrary conclusion, that if three millions may be well governed for 70,0001. eight millions may be as well governed for three times that sum, and that therefore the expence of his own government should be diminished. In that corrupted nation no man is ashamed of being concerned in lucrative government jobs, in which the public money is egregiously misapplied and squandered, the treasury pillaged, and more numerous and heavy taxes accumulated, to the great oppression of the people. But the prospect of a greater number of such jobs by a war is an inducement with many, to cry out for war upon all occasions, and to oppose every proposition of peace. Hence the constant increase of the national debt, and the absolute improbability of its ever being discharged. 4. Respecting the amount and certainty of income, and solidity of security; the whole thirteen states of America are engaged for the payment of every debt contracted by the congress, and the debt to be contracted by the present war is the only debt they will have to pay; all, or nearly all, the former debts of particular colonies being already discharged. Whereas England will have to pay not only the enormous debt this war must occasion, but all their vast preceding debt, or the interest of it, and while America is enriching itself by prizes made upon the British commerce, more than ever it did by any commerce of its own, under the restraints of a British monopoly, and the diminution of its revenues, and of course less able to discharge the present indiscreet increase of its expences. 5. Respecting prospects of greater future ability, Britain has none such. Her islands are circumscribed by the ocean; and excepting a few parks or forests, she has no new land to cultivate, and cannot therefore extend her improvements. Her numbers too, instead of increasing from increased sub sistence, are continually diminishing from growing luxury, and the increasing difficulties of maintaining families, which of course discourage early marriages. Thus she will have fewer people to assist in paying her debts, and that diminishing number will be poorer. America, on the contrary, has, besides her lands already cultivated, a vast territory yet to be cultivated; which, being cultivated, continually increases in value with the increase of people; and the people, who double themselves by a natural propagation every twenty-five years, will double yet faster, by the accession of strangers, as long as lands are to be had for new families so that every twenty years there will be a double number of inhabitants obliged to discharge the public debts; and those inhabitants, being more opulent, may pay their shares with greater ease. 6, Respecting prudence in general affairs, and the advantages to be expected from the loan desired; the Americans are cultivators of land; those engaged in fishery and commerce are few, compared with the others. They have ever conducted their several governments with wisdom, avoiding wars, and vain expensive projects, delighting only in their peaceable occupations, which must, considering the extent of their uncultivated territory, find them employment still for ages. Whereas England, ever unquiet, ambitious, avaricious, imprudent, and quarrelsome, is half of the time engaged in war, always at an expence infinitely |