One might well wonder to what extent these "truths" were as new to the French as Jefferson seemed to believe, and to what extent he was operative in strengthening the opposition to the Farmers-general, already very strong in France. However that may be, the American minister learned from the French example as much as he taught the members of the committee. The tobacco monopoly was to him another object lesson on the danger of farming taxes, and he did not forget it.
Even greater obstacles were encountered by Jefferson and Lafayette in their effort to develop commercial transactions with New England. The negotiations extended over three years and would be worth relating in detail.[129] Jefferson, bent on breaking customs barriers and obtaining free entrance for the products of New England fisheries, brought forward every possible argument to fight the doctrine of commercialism and summed up his case in a letter sent to Lafayette, but evidently intended for the committee. There for the first time he pointed out the necessary connection existing between the tariff question and the repayment of the French debt. The problem of "transfers" is not a new one, and Jefferson's reasoning sounds strangely familiar to all those who have paid any attention to our present problems of debt settlement, reparations, and tariff. The following passage seems particularly worth quoting:
On running over the catalogue of American imports, France will naturally mark out those articles which she could supply us to advantage; and she may safely calculate, that, after a little time shall have enabled us to get rid of our present incumbrances, and some remains of attachment to the particular forms of manufacture to which we have been habituated, we shall take those articles which she can furnish, on as good terms as other nations, to whatever extent she will enable us to pay for them. It is her interest therefore, as well as ours, to multiply the means of payment. These must be found in the catalogue of our exports, and among these will be seen neither gold nor silver. We have no mines of either of those metals. Produce therefore is all we can offer.[130]
The conclusion was that it was imperative to obtain such abatement of duties and even such exemptions as the importance of the article might justify, in the hope that his country would be enabled to build up a commercial credit of about 275,000 louis, which would provide for the service and amortization of the American debt to France.