By this Conveyance I send a Number of News Papers inclosed to your Address which contain all the current News of this place or rather may serve to shew that there is but very little or none. About fifteen days past seven States appeared on the floor of Congress and produced their respective Credentials and proceeded to the Choice of a President but in vain as not more than two states could agree in any one Man and I really am unable to unravel the Mystery of this Business nor can I form any Opinion who will be the Man.(1) After this Meeting there continued to be seven States in the City for about a Week but never again appeared at the same Time on the floor owing to indisposition of some one or other and after this last mentioned Period expired the New York Delegation were off the floor and the new Appointment did not take place before yesterday so that I suppose We shall again on Monday that is tomorrow have seven States on the floor and if no more I believe it is pretty certain no President can be agreed on by them.
The ostensible Objection raised by the Yankees against a Delegate from No. Carolina being put in the Chair(2) is that that state is about to make some antifederal Appropriation of her Tobacco that is by ordering the Mony arising from the sale of it to be applyed to the Payment of the Interest due on the foreign debt and not suffering it to come into the Continental Treasury subject to their Appropriation. This report has been spread by Mr. Dowse and indeed I am told that a Letter of Mr. Maclaines wrote as Chairman of a Committee justafies the Report. If this is true it is surely a very antifederal Act.(3) Mr. Dowse goes further and says a Dissolution of the Union was publickly and openly spoke as a thing that would and ought to happen because the Northern states were injurious to the southern and that some Members said if a Dissolution was to take place that it would be best to hold on altogether upon the Tobacco. In reply to all this I can only say that some imprudent Members may have expressed themselves unthinkingly but that I believe the Legislative Acts will evince a different Spirit.
It is with great Pleasure I learn by a Letter from Mr. Sitgreaves for I have not been favoured with one from yourself that you are again reelected Governor also that Hawkins is elected to supply the place of Mr. Nash(4) and as he was elected so early as before the 20th December I am in hourly Expectation of his Arrival and Colonel Grayson of Virginia
As there has been no Business done by Congress since my arrival you can expect no Congressional News. The new elected Delegation of this state are except one antifederal Peasants(5) notwithstanding the great Choice the state affords of Gentlemen of Abilities and who were Candidates. Recollecting how earnestly Col. Burton pushed his Election I have daily expected him tho' I have not been favoured with a Line from him nor any other of my Brother Delegates. Will you please to inform me which two may be expected or rather which one beside Hawkins for I count on him certain?
I suppose you have seen the account published in the Papers "that Spain had ceded the Floridas to France" and that you may know as much of the Truth of this assertion as is Known here I will inform You that both the Spanish and French Ministers deny the Truth of this Publication(6) and are displeased with the Report which induces some People to believe the Report is true as to myself I am unable to form any Opinion tho' I am upon the best of Terms with both these Ministers and have conversed with both of them several Times on this Report. If the state should have done as reported by Mr. Dowse the Delegation here will surely feel very humble for it is already in the Mouth of every body that she has never paid but 7/6 in the Continental Treasury. I am with much Respect and esteem, Your Most Obedient Humble servant,
Wm. Blount
RC (Nc-Ar: Governors' Papers).
1 See JCC, 32:1-11; and the preceding entry .
2 For Blount's personal interest in the presidency, see his letters to John Gray Blount of January 7 and 10.
3 In his March 1 reply to Blount, Governor Caswell reported that "Mr. Dowse was mistaken in the Idea he had taken up of the intentions of the State," concerning the disposal of the state's tobacco. N.C. State Records, 20:629.
4 For the December 16 election of Governor Caswell as well as the new delegation to Congress for the year November 1787 to November 1788 -- John B. Ashe, Timothy Bloodworth, Benjamin Hawkins, Alexander Martin, Thomas Polk, and James White -- see ibid., 18:105-6, 337. For the election of Benjamin Hawkins on December 18 and John B. Ashe on December 20 to fill the unexpired terms of Abner Nash, deceased, and Charles Johnson, resigned, see ibid., pp. 113-14, 117, 128, 340, 342, 346-47, 352; and JCC, 34:7.
5 Blount is apparently singling out Egbert Benson from his colleagues John Haring, John Lansing, Melancton Smith, and Abraham Yates.
6 An item in the January 16 issue of the New York Packet reported that "The following. . .are the outlines of the specific terms on which the Spaniards will cede to France the two colonies of East and West Florida, on the continent of North America," listing five points of an agreement. "It is assured," the report concluded, "that there is besides a secret article, by which France guarantees in the most unequivocal terms, the navigation of the Mississippi to the Spaniards alone."
This rumor had been making the rounds of New York for some time, and had prompted the French chargé d'affaires Louis-Guillame Otto to offer the following denial to John Jay, December 21, 1786, which was printed in the Packet January 19.
"Several members of Congress having inquired of me, with a degree of earnestness, whether the news concerning the pretended exchange with Spain, in the southern part of this continent, was well founded, I cannot answer that question better than by communicating to you the following passage, in a despatch from the Count De Vergennes, of the 25th August last: `The exchange of Louisiana for a French possession in the West Indies, has never been in question. And if anything should be again said of it, you will be pleased to deny it formally.'" See Diplomatic Correspondence, 1783-89, 1:241.