University of Virginia Library

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.[1]

Dear Sir,—The remittance to Colonel Bland is a
source of hope to his brethren. I am almost ashamed
to reiterate my wants so incessantly to you, but they
begin to be so urgent that it is impossible to suppress
them. The kindness of our little friend in
Front street, near the coffee-house, is a fund which
will preserve me from extremities, but I never resort
to it without great mortification, as he obstinately rejects
all recompense. The price of money is so
usurious, that he thinks it ought to be extorted
from none but those who aim at profitable speculations.
To a necessitous Delegate he gratuitously
spares a supply out of his private stock.

No addition has been made to our stock of intelligence
from Europe since the arrival of the French
frigates. Some letters from the Marquis de la Fayette
and others have since come to hand, but they
are all of the same date with the despatches then
received. One of the Marquis's paragraphs, indeed,
signifies the tergiversation of Mr. Grenville, which
had been only in general mentioned to us before.
On the communication made by this gentleman to
the Count de Vergennes of the object of his mission,

he proposed verbally the unconditional acknowledgment
of American Independence as a point to which
the King had agreed. The Count de Vergennes immediately
wrote it down, and requested him to put his
name to the declaration. Mr. Grenville drew back,
and refused to abide by any thing more than that
the King was disposed to grant American Independence.
This illustrates the shade of difference between
Shelburne and Fox.