heir money is ready. It
is, therefore, but three months from this day, before your answer
should be in Amsterdam. It might answer a useful purpose also, could I
receive a communication of that answer, ten days earlier than they. The
same stagnation attending our passage from the old to the new form of
government, which stops the feeble channel of money hitherto flowing
towards our treasury, has suspended also what foreign credit we had. So
that, at this moment, we may consider the progress of our loan as
stopped. Though much an enemy to the system of borrowing, yet I feel
strongly the necessity of preserving the power to borrow, Without this,
we might be overwhelmed by another nation, merely by the force of its
credit. However, you can best judge whether the payment of a single
year's interest on Stanitski's certificates, in Europe, instead of
America, may be more injurious to us than the shock of our credit in
Amsterdam, which may be produced by a failure to pay our interest.

I have only to offer any services which I can render in this business,
either here or by going to Holland, at a moment's warning, if that
should be necessary.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and
respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO DOCTOR PRICE.

PARIS, February 7, 1788.

DEAR SIR,--It is rendering mutual service to men of virtue and
understanding to make them acquainted with one another. I need no other
apology for presenting to your notice the bearer hereof, Mr. Barlow. I
know you were among the first who read the Visions of Columbus, while
yet in manuscript; and think the sentiments I heard you express of that
poem will induce you to be pleased with the acquaintance of their
author. He comes to pass a few days only at London, merely to know
something of it. As I have little acquaintance there, I cannot do
better for him than to ask you to be so good as to make him known to
such persons, as his turn and his time might render desirable to him.

I thank you for the volume you were so kind as to send me some time
ago. Everything you write is precious, and this volume is on the most
precious of all our concerns. We may well admit morality to be the
child of the understanding rather than of the senses, when we observe
that it becomes dearer to us as the latter weaken, and as the former
grows stronger by time and experience, till the hour arrives in which
all other obj