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 to time.  Honest and annual publications of the payments made, will inspire confidence, while silence would conceal nothing from those interested to know.

You will perceive by the comte rendu which I send you, that this country now calls seriously for its interest at least.  The nonpayment of this, hitherto, has done our credit little injury, because the government here, saying nothing about it, the public have supposed they wished to leave us at our ease as to the payment.  It is now seen that they call for it, and they will publish annually the effect of that call.  A failure here, therefore, will have the same effect on our credit hereafter, as a failure at Amsterdam.  I consider it, then, as of a necessity not to be dispensed with, that these calls be effectually provided for.  If it shall be seen, that the general provision before hinted at cannot be in time, then it is the present government which should take on itself to borrow in Amsterdam what may be necessary.  The new government should by no means be left by the old to the necessity of borrowing a stiver, before it can tax for its interest.  This will be to destroy the credit of the new government in its birth.  And I am of opinion, that if the present Congress will add to the loan of a million (which Mr. Adams and myself have proposed this year) what may be necessary for the French calls to the year 1790, the money can be obtained at the usual disadvantage.  Though I have not at this moment received such authentic information from our bankers as I may communicate to Congress, yet I know privately from one of them (Mr. Jacob Van Staphorst, who is here), that they had on Hand a fortnight ago four hundred thousand florins, and the sale going on well.  So that the June interest, which had been in so critical a predicament, was already secured.  If the loan of a million on Mr. Adams’s bonds of this year be ratified by Congress, the applications of the money