friendly or charitable motives, or to recommend themselves) have busied
themselves about this redemption, as to excite great expectations in the
captors, and render our countrymen in fact irredeemable. We have not a
single operation on foot for that purpose, but what you know of, and the
more all voluntary interpositions are discouraged, the better for our
unhappy friends whom they are meant to serve.

You know how strongly we desire to pay off our whole debt to France,
and that for this purpose, we will use our credit as far as it will hold
good. You know, also, what may be the probability of our being able to
borrow the whole sum. Under these dispositions and prospects, it would
grieve us extremely to see our debt pass into the hands of speculators,
and be subjected ourselves to the chicaneries and vexations of private
avarice. We desire you, therefore, to dissuade the government, as far as
you can prudently, from listening from any overtures of that kind, and
as to the speculators themselves, whether native or foreign, to inform
them, without reserve, that our government condemns their projects, and
reserves to itself the right of paying nowhere but into the treasury of
France, according to their contract.

I enclose you a copy of Mr. Grand's note to me, stating the conditions
on which Drost would come, and also a letter from the Secretary of the
Treasury, expressing his ideas as to those terms, with which I agree.
We leave to your agency the engaging and sending Mr. Drost as soon
as possible, and to your discretion to fix the terms, rendering the
allowance for expenses certain, which his first proposition leaves
uncertain. Subsistence here costs about one third of what it does in
Paris, to a housekeeper. In a lodging house, the highest price for a
room and board is a dollar a day, for the master, and half that for the
servant. These facts may enable you to settle the article of expenses