h will be preferred.

The war between the Russians and Turks, has made an opening for our
Commodore Paul Jones. The Empress has invited him into her service. She
insures to him the rank of rear admiral; will give him a separate
command, and, it is understood, that he is never to be commanded. I
think she means to oppose him to the Captain Pacha, on the Black Sea.
He is by this time, probably, at St. Petersburg. The circumstances did
not permit his awaiting the permission of Congress, because the season
was close at hand for opening the campaign. But he has made it a
condition, that he shall be free at all times to return to the orders
of Congress, whenever they shall please to call for him; and also, that
he shall not in any case be expected to bear arms against France. I
believe Congress had it in contemplation, to give him the grade of
admiral, from the date of his taking the Serapis. Such a measure now
would greatly gratify him, second the efforts of fortune in his favor,
and better the opportunities of improving him for our service, whenever
the moment shall come in which we may want him.

The danger of our incurring something like a bankruptcy in Holland,
which might have been long, and even fatally felt in a moment of
crisis, induced me to take advantage of Mr. Adams' journey to take
leave at the Hague to meet him there, get him to go on to Amsterdam,
and try to avert the impending danger. The moment of paying a great sum
of annual interest was approaching. There was no money on hand, the
board of treasury had notified that they could not remit any; and the
progress of the loan which had been opened there, had absolutely
stopped. Our bankers there gave me notice of all this; and that a
single day's failure in the payment of interest would have the most
fatal effect on our credit. I am happy to inform you we were able to
set the loan a going again, and that the evil is at least postponed.
Indeed, I am tolerably satisfied, that if the measures we proposed are
ratified by Congress, all European calls for money (except the French
debt) are secure enough, till the end of the year 1790; by which time,
we calculated that the new government might be able to get money into
their treasury. Much conversation with the bankers, brokers and money
holders, gave me insight into the state of national credit there, which
I had never before been able satisfactorily to get. The English credit
is the first, because they never open a