8458. TOBACCO, Monopoly in France.—[further continued].
My letters from New York inform me that * * * the monopoly
of the purchase of tobacco for France, which
had been obtained by Robert Morris, had
thrown the commerce of that article in agonies.
He had been able to reduce the price in America
from 40| to 22|6. lawful the hundred weight,
and all other merchants being deprived of that
medium of remittance, the commerce between
America and that country, so far as it depended
on that article, which was very capitally too,
was absolutely ceasing. An order has been obtained,
obliging the Farmers General to purchase
from such other merchants as shall offer
fifteen thousand hogsheads of tobacco at thirty-four,
thirty-six and thirty-eight livres the hundred,
according to the quality, and to grant to
the sellers in other respects the same terms as
they had granted to Robert Morris. As this
agreement with Morris is the basis of this order,
I send you some copies of it, which I will thank
you to give to any American (not British) merchants
in London who may be in that line. During
the year this contract has subsisted, Virginia
and Maryland have lost £400,000 by the
reduction of the price of their tobacco.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. i, 586.
Ford ed., iv, 252.
(P.
1786)
