ds I could afford him, it was absolutely
incumbent on me to be informed of their extent in every channel,
through which I expected them to flow.

Your Excellency, convinced of the propriety of my observations, and of
the actual necessities of our situation, ventured the assurance of
another million of livres. Therefore, whilst I was at camp, during the
consultations on the measures, I gave his Excellency reason to
believe, that the amount of two millions five hundred thousand livres
of bills on France, in conjunction with the resources provided by
Congress, should be brought to the support of his operations. Counting
upon this as certain, General Washington has taken his measures
accordingly.

It has been my study to make the bills as productive as circumstances
would permit, and to apply the money to the purposes for which it was
granted, under the most scrupulous and assiduous attention to the
principles of economy, and I may hazard the opinion, that no money has
been more frugally or usefully expended by the United States during
the war, without the least danger of being put in the wrong.

You are sensible that the money which arrived with Colonel Laurens,
although landed on the Continent, cannot be brought into use until its
arrival here; and although I have sent for it, yet it is but now on
the road, and the General cannot stop his operations, nor can I refuse
or defer compliance with my engagements until its arrival. The ruinous
consequences that would follow, must appear too strong and clear to a
gentleman of your reflection and information, to need any other
demonstration than the bare mention of the facts. Consequently your
Excellency will be well convinced of the absolute necessity of
permitting me to draw to the extent agreed upon, and I hope his
Majesty's Ministers will be too strongly impressed with apprehensions
of the fatal consequences that would follow any neglect of my bills,
to suffer the least inattention to them; and as the sum in total will
not be of such magnitude as to occasion great inconvenience, I hope
his Majesty will find cause to applaud your zeal and attention upon
the occasion.

A committee of Congress have laid before me the communications your
Excellency has lately made to Congress, which will claim my utmost
attention, and your Excellency will do me the justice to believe that
my most strenuous endeavors shall be to promote what is so strongly
urged by his Majesty's Ministers, the