As to your finances here, it is fit that you should know the state of them. When the Commissioners of Congress made the proposition of paying the interest at Paris of the money borrowed in America, they understood the loan to be of five millions of dollars. They obtained from government sums more than sufficient for the interest of such a sum. That sum has been increased, and if they could otherwise have provided for it, they have been from time to time drained by a number of unforeseen expenses, of which the Congress had no knowledge, and of others, occasioned by their orders and drafts; and the cargoes sent to the Commissioners by the Committee have some of them been treacherously run away with by the seamen, or taken by the enemy, or, when arrived, have been hitherto applied toward the payment of debts, the tobaccos to the Farmers-General according to contract, and the rice and indigo to Messrs Hortalez & Co. from whom, by the way, we have not yet been able to procure any account. I have lately employed an accountant, the son of our banker, to form complete books of our accounts, to be sent to Congress. They are not yet ready. When they are, I shall send them by the first safe opportunity. In the meantime, I may just mention some particulars of our disbursements. Great quantities of clothing, arms, ammunition, and naval stores, sent from time to time; payment of bills from Mr Bingham, one hundred thousand livres; Congress bills in favor of Haywood & Co. above two hundred thousand; advanced to Mr Ross, about twenty thousand pounds sterling; paid Congress drafts in favor of returned officers, ninetythree thousand and eighty livres; to our prisoners in England, and after their escape to help them home, and to other Americans here in distress, a great sum; I cannot at present say how much; supplies to Mr Hodge for fitting out Captain Cunningham, very considerable; for the freight of ships to carry over the supplies, great sums; to Mr William Lee, and Mr Izard, five thousand five hundred pounds sterling; and for fitting the frigates Raleigh, Alfred, Boston, Providence, Alliance, Ranger, &c. I imagine not less than sixty or seventy thousand livres each, taken one with another; and for the maintenance of the English prisoners, I believe, when I get in all the accounts, I shall find one hundred thousand livres not sufficient, having already paid above sixtyfive thousand on that article. And now the drafts of the Treasurer of the loans, coming very fast upon me, the anxiety I have suffered, and the distress of mind lest I should not be able to pay them, has for a long time been very great indeed.