or the principal;
but they see that we borrow of themselves to pay the interest, so that
this is only a conversion of their interest into principal. Our paper,
for this reason, sells for from four to eight per cent, below par, on
the exchange, and our loans are negotiated with the Patriots only.
But the whole body of money-dealers, Patriot and Stadtholderian, look
forward to our new government with a great degree of partiality and
interest. They are disposed to have much confidence in it, and it was
the prospect of its establishment, which enabled us to set the loan of
last year into motion again. They will attend steadfastly to its first
money operations. If these are injudiciously begun, correction, whenever
they shall be corrected, will come too late. Our borrowings will always
be difficult and disadvantageous. If they begin well, our credit will
immediately take the first station. Equal provision for the interest,
adding to it a certain prospect for the principal, will give us a
preference to all nations, the English not excepted. The first act of
the new government should be some operation, whereby they may assume to
themselves this station. Their European debts form a proper subject for
this. Digest the whole, public and private, Dutch, French, and Spanish,
into a table, showing the sum of interest due every year, and the
portions of principal payable the same year. Take the most certain
branch of revenue, and one which shall suffice to pay the interest, and
leave such a surplus as may accomplish all the payments of the capital,
as terms somewhat short of those, at which they will become due. Let the
surpluses of those years, in which no reimbursement of principal falls,
be applied to buy up our paper on the exchange of Amsterdam, and thus
anticipate the demands of principal. In this way our paper will be kept
up at par; and this alone will enable us to command in four and twenty
hours, at any time, on the exchange of Amsterdam, as many millions as
that capital can produce. The same act which makes this provision for
the existing debts, should go on to open a loan to their whole amount;
the produce of that loan to be applied, as fast as received, to the
payment of such parts of the existing debts as admit of payment. The
rate of interest to be as the government should privately instruct their
agent, because it must depend on the effect these measures would have on
the exchange. Probably it could be lowered from time