The paper bills out of America, are next to nothing. I have no reason to think, that there are ten thousand dollars in all Europe; indeed, I do not know of one thousand. The agents in America of merchants in Europe, have laid out their paper bills in lands, or in indigo, rice, tobacco, wheat, flour, &c.; in short, in the produce of the country. This produce they have shipped to Europe, sold to the King's ships, and received bills of exchange, or shipped to the West India Islands, where they have procured cash, or bills of exchange. The surplus they have put into the loan offices from time to time, for loan offices have been open all along, from 1776, I believe, to this time. Whenever any person lent paper bills to the public, and took loan office certificates, he would have been glad to have taken silver in exchange for the bills, at their then depreciated value. Why should he not be willing now? Those who lent paper, when two paper dollars were worth one in silver, will have one for two; those who lent, when forty were worth one, will have one for forty; and those who lent, when paper was as good as silver, will have dollar for dollar. Your Excellency thinks it would be hard, that those who have escaped the perils of the seas and of enemies, should be spoiled by their friends. But Congress have not spoiled any; they have only prevented themselves and the public from being spoiled. No agent of any European merchant, in making his calculations of profit and loss, ever estimated the depreciated bills at the nominal value; they all put a profit upon their goods sufficient to defray all expenses of insurance, freight, and everything else, and had a great profit besides, receiving the bills at the current, not the nominal value. It may not be amiss to state a few prices current at Boston the last and the present year, in order to show the profits which have been made. Bohea tea, forty sous a pound at L'Orient and Nantes, fortyfive dollars; salt, which costs very little in Europe, and used to be sold for a shilling a bushel, forty dollars a bushel, and in some of the other States, two hundred dollars, at times; linens, which cost two livres a yard in France, forty dollars a yard; broadcloths, a louis d'or a yard here, two hundred dollars a yard; ironmongery of all sorts, one hundred and twenty for one; millinary of all sorts, at an advance far exceeding. These were the prices at Boston. At Philadelphia, and in all the other States, they were much higher. These prices, I think, must convince your Excellency that allowing one half, or even two thirds of the vessels to be taken, there is room enough for a handsome profit, deducting all charges, and computing the value of bills at the rate of silver at the time.