Orders from the
board of treasury have now settled this question. The interest of
the next month is to be first paid, and after that, the money for the
captives and foreign officers is to be furnished, before any other
payment of interest. This insures it when the next February interest
becomes payable. My representations to them, on account of the contracts
I had entered into for making the medals, have produced from them the
money for that object, which is lodged in the hands of Mr. Grand.
Mr. Necker, in his discourse, proposes among his bonifications of
revenue, the suppression of our two free ports of Bayonne and L'Orient,
which, he says, occasion a loss of six hundred thousand livres annually,
to the crown, by contraband. (The speech being not yet printed, I state
this only as it struck my ear when he delivered it. If I have mistaken
it, I beg you to receive this as my apology, and to consider what
follows, as written on that idea only.) I have never been able to see
that these free ports were worth one copper to us. To Bayonne our trade
never went, and it is leaving L'Orient.
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