2094. DEBTS DUE BRITISH, Jefferson's Personal.—[further continued] .
Another question is as
to the paper money I deposited in the treasury
of Virginia towards the discharge of this debt.
I before observed that I had sold lands to the
amount of four thousand two hundred pounds
sterling before a shilling of paper money was
emitted, with a view to pay this debt. I received
this money in depreciated paper. The
State was then calling on those who owed
money to British subjects to bring it into the
treasury, engaging to pay a like sum to the
creditor at the end of the war. I carried the
identical money therefore to the Treasury,
where it was applied, as all the money of the
same description was, to the support of the war.
Subsequent events have been such that the State
cannot, and ought not to pay the same nominal
sum in gold or silver which they received in
paper, nor is it certain what they will do. *
* * Whatever the State decides you shall receive
* * * the debt fully. I am ready to
remove all difficulty arising from this deposit,
to take back to myself the demand against the
State, and to consider the deposit as originally
made for myself and not for you.—
To William Jones.
Ford ed., iv, 355.
(P.
1787)
See 2005 to 2010.
