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177 Gouverneur Morris Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University , manuscript 834. The manuscript is damaged. Where conjectures are possible, I have included them in brackets; otherwise, missing words are indicated by empty brackets.This appears to be a draft of a paper sent to the French minister, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, in October 1783. It is excerpted in Sparks, Life, 1:261ff. According to Kline, New Nation, 284, the proposal Morris makes here was substantially embodied in the French Arrêt of August 1784. 1. Diary entry of March 2, 1789 (Morris, Diary of the French Revolution), xxxvii. 2. Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (1721–94), French statesman and uncle of Chevalier de la Luzerne. 13 • Ideas of an American on the Commerce Between the United States and French Islands As It May Respect Both France and America (1783) When Morris arrived in France in early 1789, he already had a reputation for knowledge of economics and finance. In large measure, this reputation rested on several letters that he had written in 1783 and 1784 concerning American trade with the French West Indies, which had been circulated among French policy makers.1 Morris himself was inclined to make light of the letters; in any case he was in France on private business and had no desire to become involved in French policy discussions: I find . . . that fortunately the Comte de Puisignieu prevented the Publication of my Letter to Monsr. de Chatellux. This Letter is after all, in my Opinion, a very trifling Thing and I cannot conceive the Reason for so much Applause as has been given to it. . . . I tell him I have no Wish to talk with their Ministers on public Affairs but if he [Monsieur de Malesherbes]2 chuses to ask my Ideas it will be my Duty to give them after his very particular Attention to me. In Effect I had rather leave our Affairs in the Hands of our Minister [Thomas Jefferson] and give him my Ideas. The English originals of most of these documents seem to have been lost. What survive are a draft of the letter to Chevalier de la Luzerne, included here, and a French translation of a letter to the Marquis de Chas- 178 chaPtEr 13 3. Jefferson summarizes the letters to Chastellux of October 7, 1783, and May 14, 1784, as well as the paper to Luzerne. This summary is published in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 7:351–53. Another letter to Chastellux, dated June 17 and 24, 1784 (GM wrote the first paragraph on the 17th and completed the letter on the 24th; there is also a postscript dated July 1), is preserved in the archives of the French Foreign Ministry. See Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Mémoires et Documents, États-Unis II, 120–23, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 4. An Order in Council of July 2, 1783, excluded all but British ships from commerce with ports in the British West Indies. tellux. There are also summaries of two letters to Chastellux and the letter to Luzerne among Thomas Jefferson’s papers.3 •• Ideas of an American on the Commerce between the United States and French Islands as it may respect both France and America— It is [considered] by some, to be for the Interest of France to [prohibit] to her Islands the Importation of Flour from this Country, and the Exportation of Sugar &ca. in American Bottoms. That such Regulations will be injurious to the Commerce of the United States, that Artifices will be used to elude them, and that animosities may be excited between the two Powers, is evident. But let us consider whether it [will] advance either the Commerce, the Revenue, or [the] Navigation of France to tread in the Path lately marked out by Great Britain.4 It is said, that the Merchants of Bourdeaux are desirous of confining to themselves the Flour Trade of the Islands. But these Merchants should consider that their Commerce in Wine, already very important, may derive considerable Benefit from the Consumption of this Country. That if America cannot vend her Commodities, she cannot purchase those of other Countries & that the Inability to purchase must restrain us, first, in Articles which are not necessary, and next, in [Articles] which are necessary. In the first Case, we must bear the Want, and in the second we must supply it by our own internal Efforts. Let it then be considered as...

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