What will be the result of these
conferences, is not yet known. We have hopes, however, that it is not
desperate, because the bankers consented yesterday, to pay off the
capital of fifty-one thousand florins, which had become due on the first
day of January, and which had not yet been paid. We have gone still
further. The treasury board gives no hope of remittances, till the new
government can procure them. For that government to be adopted, its
legislature assembled, its system of taxation and collection arranged,
the money gathered from the people into the treasury, and then remitted
to Europe, must extend considerably into the year 1790. To secure our
credit then, for the present year only, is but to put off the evil day
to the next. What remains of the last loan, when it shall be filled up,
will little more than clear us of present demands, as may be seen by the
estimate enclosed. We thought it better, therefore, to provide at once
for the years 1789 and 1790 also; and thus to place the government at
its ease, and her credit in security, during that trying interval.
The same estimate will show, that another million of florins will be
necessary to effect this.
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