2030. DEBT (French), Transfer to Hol-land.—[continued].
I think it would be ad-visable
to have our debt transferred to individu-als
of your country [Holland]. There could,
and would be no objection to the guarantee re-maining
as you propose; and a postponement
of the first payments of capital would surely
be a convenience to us. For though the re-sources
of the United States are great and grow-ing,
and their dispositions good, yet their ma-chine
is new, and they have not got it to go
well. It is the object of their general wish at
present, and they are all in movement, to set
it in a good train; but their movements are
necessarily slow. They will surely effect it in
the end, because all have the same end in view;
the difficulty being only to get all the thirteen
States to agree on the same means.—
To C. W. F. Dumas. Washington ed. ii, 120.
(P.
1787)
