g on a civil war. On the other hand, the privileged
orders, offering to submit to equal taxation, may propose to the King
to continue the government in its former train, resuming to himself
the power of taxation. Here, the tax-gatherers might be resisted by
the people. In fine, it is but too possible, that between parties so
animated, the King may incline the balance as he pleases. Happy that he
is an honest, unambitious man, who desires neither money nor power for
himself; and that his most operative minister, though he has appeared to
trim a little, is still, in the main, a friend to public liberty.

I mentioned to you in a former letter, the construction which
our bankers at Amsterdam had put on the resolution of Congress,
appropriating the last Dutch loan, by which the money for our captives
would not be furnished till the end of the year 1790. 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. Besides, the right of _entrepot_
is a perfect substitute for the right of free port. The latter is a
little less troublesome only, to the merchants and captains. I should
think, therefore, that a thing so useless to us and prejudicial to them
might be relinquished by us, on the common principles of friendship.
I know the merchants of these ports will make a clamor, because the
franchise covers their contraband with all the world. Has Monsieur
de Moustier said any thing to you on this subject? It h