The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 11
History
The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 11
United States -- Foreign relations -- 1775-1783; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Sources
By captain James Nicholson, commanding the frigate Trumbull, I send a
bill of lading and invoice of five hundred barrels of flour, which is
all fresh and good, and a considerable part of it superfine. This
flour I have caused to be shipped to your address, on account and risk
of the United States of North America. Be pleased to receive it as
quickly as may be from the ship, make the most advantageous sale of
it, which you can, and remit the net proceeds in Mexican dollars,
consigned to my order, for account and at the risk of the United
States. I expect you will not charge more than five per cent for
transacting the business, that is, two and a half per cent on the
sales, and the same on the returns.
I have also enclosed a bill of exchange, drawn by myself on Messrs Le
Couteulx & Co. bankers in Paris, to the amount of five hundred
thousand livres tournois; this bill is at sixty days' sight, and you
may depend it will be punctually paid, for I have the authority of the
Court of Versailles to draw it, and every assurance I could wish. You
will observe, by my letter to the Governor, that he is to have the
refusal of this bill; you will therefore offer it to him in the first
instance. When I consider the risk, which must attend sending money
from Havana to Cadiz, and the remittances, as well private as public,
which are to be made from one place to the other, I cannot but
persuade myself, that unless the government and the people are alike
blind to their interests, good bills must sell at a very considerable
advance. Should the Governor decline taking the bill on Paris, as it
is not probable that any one private person would purchase it, you may
either remit it to the House of Le Couteulx & Co. in Paris, or to the
House of Messrs. J. L. & L. Le Couteulx & Co. at Cadiz, as may be most
convenient for your operations. You will then draw on the House to
whom you remit the bill, and sell your bills to the same amount.
Should you remit to the House in Cadiz, let me know it, that I may
write and apprize them of it; but this I shall do provisionally,
beforehand, so that they may be prepared for you.
I have also, as you will perceive, written to his Excellency on the
subject of certain other bills of exchange, drawn on Mr Jay. You will
endeavor to get the money for these, if possible; and in case it is
required, you will enter the stipulations there mentioned, as to the
shipment of flour. In this last case, get the flour fixed at as high a
rate as possible, and let me have due notice, so that I may punctually
cause to be fulfilled, whatever contracts you shall, on the part of
the public, have entered into.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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