A week elapsed without my receiving any answer either from the Minister or M. Del Campo. The time when our bills would be due was drawing very nigh. My expectations of aid from France were at best uncertain, and every consideration urged me not to leave anything in my power undone here, to avoid the catastrophe I had so much reason to apprehend. I therefore concluded to wait on the Minister, and in a plain and pointed manner enter into a detail of the reasons given us to expect supplies from this Court, and the impolicy of withholding them. For this purpose I went to the Pardo on the 9th of March. The Minister received me with great cordiality; he was in uncommon good spirits. He entered largely into the nature of his indisposition; the effect of the weather upon his nerves, and how much he found himself the better for the last three fine days; and after we had conversed awhile about the conquest of Minorca, and the importance of it, he said he supposed that I wished also to speak to him on the subject of our affairs. I told him that was really the case, for that the bills, which remained to be paid, and the want of funds for the purpose, gave me great uneasiness. He interrupted me by remarking, that he had ordered the balance due on the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be paid. That the public exigencies had even rendered this payment inconvenient, but that he was an honest man, a man of his word, and, therefore, as he had promised me that sum, he was determined that I should not be disappointed. That as to further aids he could promise nothing _positively_, that he would _do his best_, and shrugging his shoulders, intimated that he was not Minister of Finance. I observed, that the sum now wanted was not very considerable, and that M. Cabarrus' offer rendered the advancing of it very easy. He was in a very good humor; and after a few hesitations, he told me cheerfully and smilingly, that when I found myself very hard pressed, I should desire M. Cabarrus to wait upon him. This I considered as an implied consent to comply with M. Cabarrus' offer, in case such a step should become absolutely necessary to save our bills; and I imagined he chose to delay it as long as possible, in hopes that the French Ambassador might in the meantime interpose his credit, as he had before done on a similar occasion. I was content that the matter should rest there, and would not hazard losing what I thought I had gained by requiring more at present. I thanked him for this mark of favor, and then turned the conversation to Major Franks' arrival, and my anxiety to communicate some certain intelligence to Congress relative to the proposed treaty, and what they might expect on that head.