I am but just arrived, and have not yet seen our bankers. Saturday and Sunday are usually spent at country seats. But before I leave this place, I shall be able to inform you more precisely, whether you may depend on anything from hence. No pains of mine shall be spared. The British stocks are so low that we may hope for something. If a Minister is sent to London, you should give him a commission to borrow money. If he conducts the matter with secrecy and caution, he may probably obtain a considerable sum there. There are monied men in that country who wish us well. There are others who may easily be inspired with more faith in our funds, than they can rationally have in their own. If upon advising with proper persons, he should not judge it prudent to open a loan there, he might easily put things in a train for some individuals to purchase obligations in your loan in Amsterdam. So dismal are the prospects in England, that many men are on the wing to fly, and some would be willing to transfer their property across the Atlantic. I have the honor to be, &c. JOHN ADAMS. * * * * * TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. The Hague, July 30th, 1783. Sir, I have been the more particular in my letters to you concerning that extensive manufacture and commerce of refined sugars in this country, because the proximity of all the sugar colonies to us renders a share in it naturally useful and convenient, both to us and them. Fifty thousand hogsheads of raw sugar are annually wrought in this Republic, and exported at a great profit to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, and Italy. At Amsterdam I visited a number of respectable merchants, in order to discover their sentiments concerning the communication between us and their Islands and sugar colonies. They all agree, that St Eustatia and Curaçoa are and will be commercial Islands, open and free to all our vessels. St Martin's is divided between the French and Danes and the Dutch, whose share of it does not flourish. The colonies upon the continent, Surinam, Berbice, Demarara, and Essequibo, are at a greater distance from us. But they will be open to our vessels and their cargoes, because they all agree, that those colonies cannot subsist without our horses, lumber and provisions, nor without the sale to us of their molasses. We shall be allowed to take in return molasses, with which some quantities of sugar, coffee, and other produce are always smuggled, as they say. But although nothing has been as yet determined, it is the general opinion, that the produce of the colonies must be brought home in Dutch ships, as heretofore, molasses excepted. From the Secretary of the West India Company I have obtained a few minutes, in so bad French, that I almost despair of rendering them intelligible. I have attempted it, however, in the following translation, viz.