This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

-L-00 111
creditors seized his property. Duiing this year lio had alio borrowed from the royal treasury, through Galvez, $70,000 in specie, which was expended for the furtherance of Clarke's campaign, ond the defense of the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers. For this amount he gave his own individual bond.
During the time of his appointment as U.S. agent, from 1777 to 1783 he mode advances to the government of Virginia and also to the United States, on the basis of his own credit of over three hundred thousand dollars in specie . His private fortune was, for those days, great. He was supported by some of the first mercantile houses of Europe, as well as the south, and the wealth of many Spanish officers, his friends, was at his disposol . "But ot that era the bond of America was comparatively of straw, her exchequer was of poper, but her promise was gold." How it resulted with Pollock, as her agent, is easily anticipated.
The Secret Committee of the United States, in Philadelphia, embarassed him very seriously by failing to respond to his drafts. By their directions he made extensive purchases ? borrowed and forwarded to Willing & Morris large sums of money, and pledged his own property for the amount. The Committee expressly stipulated that he should draw on them in favor of whom he pleased, with assurances that his drafts should be paid. They also pledged him that cargoes of flour should be shipped to him in the several vessels he employed, and that other remittances should be made for future purchases. These promises they failed to make good. . In reply to his appeal for remittances they wrote him July 19, 1779, recognizing his claims, his sacri-ficies, and his faithfulness to duty, but lamenting their inability to fulfil their pledges. Virginia was largely in the some situotion. In 1780 she sent him a draft for a large amount, but it was at the time only as so much blank paper.
In the Calendar of Virginia State Papers occurs a letter from Pollock to John Todd, County Lieut, of Illinois, acknowledging receipt of his without date, by the hands of Mons. Penault, May 4, 1780, New Orleans. "By this he had received a bill on Frante for i 60,814 5/8 for his advances to Virginia, but is unable to negotiate it at that place, on account of the greot scarcity of specie, which would continue until a supply could be had from Havana. This gives him great concern, because it prevents his using the bills of Genl Cl arke and other officers, and therefore from procuring the supplies of clothing so much needed by them. Gov. Galvez had captured Mobile, and is besieging Pensacola; hod been created a Field Marshal; should he be successful at Pensacola and return to New Orleans, he should exert himself to make use of him.?
By postscript of the 26th hfc "regrets to soy Governor G. has returned to New Orleans; not having been supported in time by the expected fleet from Havana, had abandoned the siege of Pensacola. He has made application to Galvez for pucuniary assistance, but without success, as that officer required all his funds for hli own purposes; had managed, however, to negotiate Clarke and Montgomery's bills and earnestly begs those officers will be as frugal as possible with the purchases made ." On page 424, same volume, is a lengthy letter from Colonel Montgomery to Governor Jefferson testifying to Pollock's self-sacrificing zeal and liberality and the great importance he has been
to the interests of the country in tl*c west. But promises and good words do not pay debts. That which would hove crushed most men only stimulated Pollock to greater exertions to sustain his own credit. Leaving a respectable American citizen, named Patterson, in his place as a hostage, he parted from his family in 1781 and went to Richmond and Philadelphia. Appealing to Congress; then in session, and to the Assembly of Virginia, he was met with in itoting delays ond failures. Meanwhile, May 20, 1783, Congress appointed him United States agent at the Hovanas; whithei also Galvez had been transferred, having been succeeded by Miro as Governor of Louisiana. Leoving his claims before Congress in the hands of on attorney, he ot once embarked for the Hovanas. Here new dangers assailed him. Galvez, although transferied to Havana, had not yet arrived. Unzaga was still in command. The bills of credit drawn from Virginia were sent to Havana for collection. Meanwhile Virginia had ceded the Illinois country to the United States, who had also assumed all the costs of Clarke's campaign. In May, 1784, one year from the date of his appointment as United States agent at Havana, a non-commissioned officer of the Spanish army, and two soldiers with arms and fixed bayonets entered his dwelling. His property, house, carriage, mules, negroes and even the money due him, some $10,000 in the hands of the several bakers of the city who hod purchased flour, were seized by the command of Unzaga, himself placed under arrest, and all correspondence between him and the United States prohibited. In August of the same year, he took leave of his family at Havana, and embarked them in the ship Favourite, Captain Vallance, owned by General Stewart, and sent them to Philadelphia, borrowing $3,000 for that purpose from a United States merchant at Havana nomed Thomas Plunket. He himself remained in close custody for eighteen months, until Galvez arrived- Through his influence he was released, after executing a bond to pay to Sefior Commissario Ordeno Don Diego Gardoqui, the Spanish minister to the United States, immediately on his arrival in that country the sums owing to the Royal Treasury, amounting in a 11 to $ 151 ,696. Galvez, however, did not allow him to depart without other evidences of his friendship and he furnished him with the following testimonial:
"Don Bernardo DeGalvez, Knight of the Royal and distinguished order of Charles II!, Commander of Bolanos in the order of Calatrava, Lieutenant General of the Royal Armies, Inspector General of the Troops in America,
Governor and Captain General of the Provinces of Louisiana and the two Floridas, and also Governor and Captain General pro tempore of the Island of Cuba, and city of St. Christoval de la Hovanno, Judge Protector of His Majesty?s tobacco revenue, of the Packets and couriers of the Royal Company, &c., &c., &c
"1 certify that Oliver Pollock, Esquire, oflunt of the commerce of the United States, has resided in this capacity in the province of Louisiana while I was governor^Qenerol of the same, ond ttat he acted in favor of the solders and citizens of his own nation with all the zoal and lovfe which ' becomes a true patriot, supplying them with provisions, and assisting them whenever they wanted it, with his own credit ond with ready money, the Cor>gress bills not being current here; in all which he neitl?er spared poins nor trouble to obtain the end he proposed to himself or to give every assistance in his power. He solicited loans in the name of the
5