LETTER CLXXXVI.--TO DR. BANCROFT, March 2, 1789
TO DR. BANCROFT.
Paris, March 2, 1789
Dear Sir,
I have just received a letter of January the 31st from Admiral Paul
Jones, at Petersburg, which charging me with the execution of some
commissions, and these requiring money, he tells me you will answer my
drafts, to the amount of four or five thousand livres, on his account.
Be so good as to inform me whether you will pay such drafts.
A Monsieur Foulloy, who has been connected with Deane, lately offered me
for sale two volumes of Deane's letter books and account books, that he
had taken instead of money, which Deane owed him. I have purchased them
on public account. He tells me Deane has still six or eight volumes
more, and being to return soon to London, he will try to get them
also, in order to make us pay high for them. You are sensible of the
impropriety of letting such books get into hands which might make
an unfriendly use of them. You are sensible of the immorality of an
ex-minister's selling his secrets for money and, consequently, that
there can be no immorality in tempting him with money to part with them;
so that they may be restored to that government to whom they properly
belong.
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