I do myself the honor to enclose the copy of a letter of the 14th of December last from Dr Franklin, and the translation of a letter of the 15th instant, from the Chevalier de la Luzerne. These, together with the letter of the 23d of December from Dr Franklin, of which I have already submitted a copy, will I trust claim the attention of the United States.
M. de la Luzerne did me the honor to make verbal communication of the Count de Vergennes' letters, from which as well as from those of Dr Franklin and from other circumstances, I consider it as certain that we are to expect no further pecuniary aid from Europe. So late as on the 9th of December last, the loan in Holland had not amounted to eighteen hundred thousand florins, and after the deduction of the charges on it, there were not above seventeen hundred thousand at my disposal. From the month of June to the 9th of December this loan had not increased half a million of florins, so that the most sanguine expectation will not carry it beyond two millions out of the five for which it was opened.
Congress will recollect, that on the 14th of September last they ordered a loan of four millions of dollars in Europe, for the service of 1783, in addition to this loan, which Mr Adams had opened in Holland. They will also recollect, that I had anticipated upon those resources about three and a half millions of livres during the year 1782. And that this anticipation was over and above the sum of a million and a half of florins, which we then knew to have been borrowed in Holland. Allowing, therefore, for the supposed increase of half a million of florins or a million of livres, there will still remain of anticipation two and a half millions of livres; so that of the sum lent for this year by his Most Christian Majesty there will remain but three millions and a half of livres. According to the common course of exchange, this sum cannot be expected to yield more than six hundred thousand dollars. Six hundred thousand dollars, therefore, with what the States will yield in taxes, form the whole of our expectations for the current year. From this is to be deducted one month's pay already promised to the army, amounting by estimate to upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.