Sir, your most
obedient and most humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXLIV.--TO M. DE TERNANT, April 27,1793
TO M. DE TERNANT.
Philadelphia, April 27,1793.
Sir,
Your letter of the 13th instant, asking monies to answer the expenses
and salaries of the consular offices of France, has been duly laid
before the President, and his directions thereon taken.
I have in consequence to observe to you, that before the new government
of France had time to attend to things on this side the Atlantic, and
to provide a deposite of money for the purposes here, there appeared a
degree of necessity that we, as the friends and debtors of that nation,
should keep their affairs from suffering, by furnishing money for urgent
purposes. This obliged us to take on ourselves to judge of the
purpose, because on the soundness of that, we were to depend for our
justification. Hence we furnished monies for their colonies and their
agents here, without express authority, judging from the importance and
necessity of the case, that they would approve of our interference.
But this kind of necessity is now at an end: the government has
established a deposite of money in the hands of their minister here, and
we have nothing now to do but to furnish the money, which we are in the
course of doing, without looking into the purposes to which it is to be
applied.
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