US Repays Debt

Pod: A lucrative silver mine on ground George Washington controls in the western Virginia mountains allows the newly formed US to imeadiatly repay its debt to France in 1784-5.

Questions:
1. would this repayment, in silver have any weight in saving the French Monarchy, or is it still to little to late?

2. Beyond any chance of saving Louis's government what would the effect of that quantity of silver entering French or European finances/banks/economy?
 
The French debt before the revolution was up to 12 billion livres.

The US government owed the French government about 2 million US dollars.

There's 1,6 grams of gold to a dollar, which means the value of the debt was 3 200 kilos of gold.

There's 24 livres to a Louis d'Or, and 7,013 grams of gold in a Louis d'Or. The French debt was thus worth 3 506 500 kilos of gold.

So the US debt to France would, if fully paid off, count for about 0,009% of the French debt.

It is not even a piss in the Mississippi.
 
The French debt before the revolution was up to 12 billion livres.

The US government owed the French government about 2 million US dollars.

There's 1,6 grams of gold to a dollar, which means the value of the debt was 3 200 kilos of gold.

There's 24 livres to a Louis d'Or, and 7,013 grams of gold in a Louis d'Or. The French debt was thus worth 3 506 500 kilos of gold.

So the US debt to France would, if fully paid off, count for about 0,009% of the French debt.

It is not even a piss in the Mississippi.
0,09% definitely one piss ;). But not more than that, i'll agree :)


Hmmm... the Mississippi flow is 2e4 m3/s or 2e7 kg/s.

Assuming a 'standard piss' is 2L in 10s, thats 2e-1 kg/s
So .1% (1e-3) is actually 100 000 pisses....

Or in terms of the French debt, $20.
All calculations here to 1 significant figure, slightly better than order of magnitude.

?how on earh did you ever guess i was a physics major once?
 
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Part of the reason why the French debt was so high was that in the last decade it was borrowing heavily to pay off debt. So if the initial debt is reduced, then at the least it doesn't have to borrow so much to finance what is left.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Part of the reason why the French debt was so high was that in the last decade it was borrowing heavily to pay off debt. So if the initial debt is reduced, then at the least it doesn't have to borrow so much to finance what is left.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

makes sense.
 
Most of the debt the French government incurred during the American Revolution wasn't from loaning it to the Americans, it was from a failed Franco-Spanish invasion of Great Britain, and other naval expenditures. And of course, France was already in debt from previous wars.

So, if the US government immediately repaid the several million it owed to France, it would still be a drop in the bucket to total French debt, and unlikely to change anything.
 
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