RC and enclosure (Adams Papers); internal address: “To his Excellency / John Adams Esqr Hague.”

Presumably JA’s letter to the consortium of 14 Feb., but see also the consortium’s letter to JA of this date, both above.

The enclosed “Sheme” should be compared with that sent by the Willinks with their letter of 4 Feb., above. Through the entry for 1799 the two schemes are identical, but whereas in the earlier plan the redemption of principal and accured interest began in 1800, in the new plan it begins in 1801 and continues through 1807, rather than 1806. Then, rather than the gratification being 5 percent on the first payment of principal and accrued interest, it is 4 percent. Therefore, in 1801 the “ƒ300.000 with premium” is ƒ312,000 rather than ƒ315,000. This reduction of ƒ3,000 results in a significant reduction in the total cost of redemption through 1807. This also meant that the United States could avoid a cash payment of interest in 1800 of ƒ55,036, resulting from the differential between the yearly 6 percent charged on the loan and the 4 percent actually paid out to the investors. For the final form of the loan see the contract of [9 March 1784], below.

This was the House of Hope, the principal partner of which was American-born Henry Hope Jr. The firm had been approached in 1782 when JA was seeking to raise the loan ultimately entrusted to the consortium. It was considered by the Dutch Patriots as pro-British and thus unacceptable, but JA later recalled that “Mr Hope” had taken much the same position as the 43 Willinks attribute to the unnamed firm, namely “that America was too young to expect to borrow money at any ordinary interest” (vol. 11:53; 12:435). In his reply to the Willinks of 28 Feb. 1784, JA regretted that the “Gentleman” was “so ill informed of the Wealth & Resources of his native Country. But I fancy two or three Years will convince him of his Error” (LbC, APM Reel 107).

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “A Son Excellence / Monsr Jean Adams / Ministre Plenipotentiaire des Etats / Unis de l’Amerique / a la Haye”; docketed: “Mr: W: Bingham / London Feby 19th: 1784.”

That is, Massachusetts and Virginia had agreed to the continental excise, but only if all of the other states approved it also (vol. 15:392; Morris, Papers , 8:836).

Bingham was not exaggerating the seriousness of the political and constitutional deadlock between William Pitt and the forces allied with the deposed Fox-North coalition. Virtually every debate in the House of Commons between 19 Dec. 1783, when the Pitt ministry replaced the Fox-North coalition, and 25 March 1784, when Parliament was dissolved, centered one way or another on the right of the Pitt ministry to govern in the absence of a majority in the Commons ( Parliamentary Hist. , 24:226–775).

Nothing highlighted the crisis more dramatically than the need to pass the Mutiny Act. The 1689 English Bill of Rights prohibited the maintenance of a standing army without Parliament’s permission. In practice this meant that Parliament yearly renewed the act, for if it did not, the army would be disbanded.