haracter of the new government; and not
fully confiding in my own judgment, where it is so liable to be seduced
by feeling, I take the liberty of asking your friendly counsel, and that
of my friend Mr. Madison, and of referring the matter to your judgments
and discretion.

Mr. Barclay when in Europe was authorized to settle all the European
accounts of the United States: he settled those of Dr. Franklin and Mr.
Adams, and it was intended between us, that he should settle mine.
But as what may be done at any time is often put off to the last, this
settlement had been made to give way to others, and that of Beaumarchais
being pressed on Mr. Barclay before his departure for Morocco, and
having long retarded his departure, it was agreed that my affair should
await his return from that mission: you know the circumstances which
prevented his return to Paris after that mission was finished. My
account is therefore unsettled, but I have no anxiety on any article of
it, except one, that is, the outfit. This consists of, 1. clothes; 2.
carriage and horses; 3. household furniture. When Congress made their
first appointments of ministers to be resident in Europe, I have
understood (for I was not then in Congress) that they allowed them all
their expenses, and a fixed sum over and above for their time. Among
their expenses, was necessarily understood their outfit. Afterwards
they thought proper to give them fixed salaries of eleven thousand
one hundred and eleven dollars and one ninth a year; and again, by
a resolution of May the 6th and 8th, 1784, the 'salaries' of their
ministers at foreign courts were reduced to nine thousand dollars,
to take place on the 1st of August ensuing. On the 7th of May I
was appointed, in addition to Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin, for the
negotiation of treaties of commerce; but this appointment being
temporary, for two years only, and not as of a resident minister, the
article of outfit did not come into question. I asked an advance of six
months' salary, that I might be in cash to meet the first expenses; which
was ordered. The year following, I was appointed to succeed Dr. Franklin
at this court. This was the first appointment of a minister resident,
since the original ones, under which all expenses were to be paid. So
much of the ancient regulation, as respected annual expenses, had been
altered to a sum certain; so much of it as respected first expenses,
or outfit, remained unaltered; and I might ther