He did not know whether Congress would approve of this new rule of law, but he took his chances. He was not the first person to suggest the principle of “free ships, free goods,” nor was he a prominent advocate of it, as has sometimes been implied; for his letter shows that Russia had suggested this improvement in the rules of international law, and that other nations were accepting it. He, however, urged on a number of occasions that war should be confined exclusively to regularly organized armies and fleets, that privateering should be abolished, that merchant vessels should be free from capture even by men-of-war, and that fishermen, farmers, and all who were engaged in supplying the necessaries of life should be allowed to pursue their avocations unmolested. The world has not yet caught up with this suggestion. The great difficulty during the last two or three years of the Revolution was the want of money. The supplies sent out by Beaumarchais and Deane in the early part of the struggle merely served to start it. In the long run expenses increased enormously, the resources of the country were drained, the paper money depreciated with terrible rapidity, and we were compelled to continue borrowing from France or Holland. We borrowed principal and then borrowed more to pay the interest on the principal, and a large part of this business passed through Franklin’s hands. He persuaded the French government to lend, and then to lend again to pay interest. He was regarded as the source from which all the money was to come. Congress drew on him, John Jay in Spain drew on him, he had to pay salaries and the innumerable expenses appertaining to the fitting out and repairing of ships and the exchange of prisoners. These calls upon him were made often from a long distance, with a sort of blind confidence that he would in some way manage to meet them. A captain in the West Indies would run his ship into a port to be careened, refitted, and supplied, and coolly draw on him for the expense. It was extremely dangerous sometimes to refuse to accept a bill presented to him, and, as he said to Congress, if a single draft for interest on a loan went to protest there would be “dreadful consequences of ruin to our public credit both in America and Europe.” He suffered enough anxiety and strain to have destroyed some men. When Jay went to Spain in 1780, Congress was so sure he would obtain money from that monarchy that it drew on him. But as Jay could not get a cent, he forwarded the drafts to Franklin, who in reply wrote, “the storm of bills which I found coming upon us both has terrified and vexed me to such a degree that I have been deprived of sleep, and so much indisposed by continual anxiety as to be rendered almost incapable of writing.” He would have gone under in this storm if he had not persuaded the French government to come to his rescue.