do they not merit serious attention? Unless some amicable and adequate arrangements be speedily taken for adjusting all the subsisting accounts, and discharging the public engagements, a dissolution of the Union will be inevitable. Will not, in that event, the Southern States, which, at sea, will be opulent and weak, be an easy prey to the Eastern, which will be powerful and rapacious; and, particularly, if supposed claims of justice are on the side of the latter, will there not be a ready pretext for reprisals? The consequence of such a situation would probably be, that alliances would be sought, first by the weaker, and then by the stronger party, and this country be made subject to the wars and politics of Europe.105

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Philadelphia, March 4, 1783.

DEAR SIR,

The past week has not added a syllable of evidence to our preceding calculations of peace. The inferences from the suspense are various as the fancies and interests of those who make them. Your letter by last post, which came to hand the day after the usual time, adopts, I conceive, the most rational solution-namely, the difficulties and delays incident to so complicated a negotiation.

Provision for the public debt continues the wearisome topic of congressional discussion. Mercer declared that, although he deems the opponents of a general revenue right in principle, yet, as they had

no plan, and it was essential that something should be done, he should strike in with the other side.

A letter from General Knox is in town, which, I understand, places the temper and affairs of the army in a less alarming view than some preceding

accounts.

The resignation of the Superintendent of Finance, with his motives, are contained in the paper enclosed. It is, as you may well suppose, a subject of general and anxious conversation. Its effect on public credit will be fully anticipated by your knowledge of our affairs. Yesterday's mail brought me no letter from you.106

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Philadelphia, March 11, 1783.

DEAR SIR,

Another week has passed without affording the least relief from our suspense as to the progress of peace. At New York they are so much in the dark that their curiosity has recourse to the gleanings of the Philadelphia gazettes. The length of the negotiation may be explained, but the delay of all parties to notify its progress is really astonishing. Our last official information is nearly five months old, and that derived from the Royal speech upwards of three months.

The peremptory style and publication of Mr. Morris's letters have given offence to many without, and to some within, Congress. His enemies, of both VOL. I.-33

descriptions, are industrious in displaying their impropriety. I wish they had less handle for the purpose.

The plan before Congress for the arrangement of our affairs, is to ask from the States a power to levy, for a term not exceeding twenty-five years, the five per cent. impost, with an additional impost on salt, wine, spirituous liquors, sugar and teas; to recommend to them to establish and appropriate permanent revenues for a like term for the deficiency; the proceeds to be carried to their credit; the whole to be collected by persons amenable to Congress, but appointed by the States; to complete the territorial cessions; to enable Congress to make abatements in favor of suffering States; Congress, on their part, declaring that all reasonable military expenses separately incurred by the States without their sanction, either by sea or land, shall be part of the common mass; and proposing to the States a substitution of numbers in place of a valuation of land; be equal to one freeman. The fate of this plan in Congress is uncertain, and still more so among the States. It makes a decent provision for the public debts, and seems to comprehend the most dangerous sources of future contests among ourselves. If the substance of it is rejected, and nothing better introduced in its place, I shall consider it as a melancholy proof that narrow and local views prevail over that liberal policy and those mutual concessions which our future tranquillity and present reputation call for.

- slaves to

Mr. Jefferson is still here, agitated, as you may sup pose, with the suspense in which he is kept. He is anxious as myself for your going into the Legislature. Let me know your final determination on this point.

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Philadelphia, March 12, 1783.

DEAR SIR,

Captain Barney, commanding the American packet boat which has been long expected with official intelligence from our Ministers in Europe, arrived here this morning. He brings a supply of money, the sum of which I cannot as yet specify, and comes under a passport from the King of Great Britain. The despatches from our Ministers are dated the fifth, fourteenth, and twenty-fourth of December. Those of the fourteenth enclose a copy of the Preliminary Articles, provisionally signed between the American and British Plenipotentiaries. The tenor of them is, that the United States shall be acknowledged, and treated with as free, sovereign, and independent; that our boundaries shall begin at the mouth of the St. Croix, run thence to the ridge dividing the waters of the Atlantic from those of St. Laurence; thence, to the head of Connecticut river; thence, down to forty-five degrees North latitude; thence, to Cadaraqui; thence, through the middle of Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior, to Long Lake, to the Lake of the Woods; and thence, due West to the Mississippi; thence, down the middle of the river to latitude thirty-one; thence, to Apalachicola, to Flint river, to St. Marys, and down the same to the Atlantic; that the fisheries shall be exercised nearly as formerly; that Congress shall earnestly recommend to the States a restitution of confiscated property, a permission to the refugees to come and remain for one year within the

States to solicit restitution; and that in the most obnoxious cases restitution may be demanded of purchasers on reimbursing them the price of the property; that debts contracted prior to 1775 shall be mutually paid according to sterling value; that all prisoners shall be mutually set at liberty, troops withdrawn, and all records and papers restored; that the navigation of the Mississippi, from the source to the mouth, shall be mutually free for the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of America. A proposition, comprehending the West Indies, was offered on the subject of commerce, but not admitted on the part of Great Britain.

In the course of the negotiation, Great Britain contended for not only the limits marked out in the Quebec act, but all ungranted soil, for a contraction of the fisheries, and for absolute stipulations in favor of the loyalists.

The despatches of the fourteenth speak also of the principal preliminaries between France and Great Britain being settled; but of little progress being made in those between Holland and Spain, and the latter; and of none between Spain and the United States.

A letter, of the twenty-fourth of December, from Dr. Franklin, varies the scene somewhat. It says, that uncertainties were arising from the unsettled state of minds in England; and encloses a letter from the Count de Vergennes, observing, that difficulties had arisen from the very facilities yielded on the part of France; and concluding with these words, as well as I can recollect, "Je ne désespère pas; J'espère plutôt; mais tout est incertain."