the 5th of this month, informing me, that you have received a letter
from the Count de Vergennes, by which his Excellency directs you to
tell me, that the interests of the United States require my presence
at Paris, and that he should desire that I should go there, as soon as
my affairs in Holland will permit me.
I should be extremely obliged to you, Sir, if you would confide to me
the nature of the business that requires me at Paris, that I might be
able to form some judgment, whether it is of so much importance, and
so pressing, as to make it necessary for me to go forthwith.
His Excellency Dr Franklin, and Colonel Laurens, have arranged affairs
in such a manner, that the accounts of the Indian are to be produced
to me, and I am to draw bills to discharge them, so that it would
retard the departure of that interesting vessel, if I were to go now;
and it is of some importance to the public that I should complete my
despatches to go to Congress by her. I am also unfortunately involved
in a good deal of business, in accepting and discharging bills of
exchange, a course of business which would be put into some confusion,
if I were to go immediately; and the general affairs of Congress in
this Republic might suffer somewhat by my absence. But notwithstanding
all, if I were informed that it is anything respecting a general
pacification, or an invitation of this Republic to accede to the
alliance between France and the United States, or any other affair of
sufficient weight to justify my quitting this port immediately, I
would do it. Otherwise it would, as I humbly conceive, be more for the
public interest, that I should wait until some of the business that
lies upon me here is despatched, and the rest put into a better order.
Let me beg the favor of your sentiments, Sir. Whenever I go, I must
beg the favor of you to furnish me with a passport.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
* * * * *
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
Amsterdam, June 11th, 1781.
Sir,
The following petition is too curious in itself, and too much attended
to by the public at this time, to be omitted.
"To the Gentlemen, the Burgomasters, Sheriffs and Counsellors of the
city of Antwerp.
"The inhabitants of the city of Antwerp in general, and those who are
there concerned in commerce, in particular, should think that they
injured their own interests, if they neglected, at a time when all
Europe talks of the advantages, which the opening of the Scheldt would
produce, to address themselves to you, Gentlemen, to make known their
desire, that you would please to take the necessary measures for this
purpose. While all nations fix at present their attention upon the
liberty of navigation, shall we be the only people, who, although
having a greater interest in it than others, should remain quiet, and
suffer to pass away, unimproved, the moment, which appears to be now
arrived to deliver ourselves from the yoke, which the Republic of
Holland imposed upon us in the days of their first celebration? No! It
is time that we awake! Since the treaty of Munster, this city and its
commerce are fallen into a great decay, but we have still the means in
our hands to revive them, because the inhabitants have ever continued
to have an indirect portion in commerce. It was they, who after the
suppression of the Company of Ostend, have assisted in the
establishment of the East India Companies of Sweden and Denmark; and
it would not be difficult to prove, that projects of all sorts have
taken place in their speculations. What could they not do, therefore,
when it shall be free to them to make a direct and unrestrained
commerce? The simple hope, which they have of it, causes among them a
revival of the spirit of commerce. When we compare the situation of
the cities of Amsterdam and Antwerp, we shall find that that of the
latter has many advantages over the former. The commerce of corn,
which makes of Holland the factory of Europe, and all the trade of the
North, offers itself to the city of Antwerp. We should soon find there
magazines provided with everything necessary to extend commerce, and
equal that of Amsterdam. This commerce alone would be sufficient to
make a revival of the bright days, which preceded the peace of
Munster.
"But what afflicts us, Gentlemen, is, that there are persons who would
divide the interests of provinces, and give birth to a rivalry between
the ports of Ostend and Antwerp, as if one port the more would be too
much for the States of his Majesty. If this could be a question, no
man could doubt that the city of Antwerp is much better situated to
make an extensive commerce, than the city of Ostend. Experience alone
is sufficient to demonstrate it. The commerce, which Antwerp has made
heretofore, came there naturally of itself, although it had been
formerly at Bruges, because the port of Antwerp was better, and in all
respects more advantageous. But these cities have nothing in common,
and if the Scheldt was open, and remained open, Ostend would not
suffer any damage from it. We have the advantage to have in our
Sovereign a Prince, whose whole application tends to render his
subjects happy; nothing can contribute more to their prosperity than
commerce. The fine arts, which have supported themselves at Antwerp,
in spite of the decay of commerce, for near one hundred and forty
years, would acquire here a new degree of perfection and lustre.
"We hope, Gentlemen, that your care and zeal for everything, which can
contribute to the prosperity of a city, which you have already lately
delivered from beggary, will make you discover, with particular
satisfaction, new means of procuring labor for the poor and needy,
diminish thereby the expense of their maintenance, without reckoning
all the other advantages, and especially the augmentation of our
population, which would be the result of our demand."
This petition discloses objects of so much weight in those scales, in
which the political and commercial interests of the nations of Europe
are now balancing, that it is worth while to transmit some
observations, which have been made upon it, which will lay open the
whole subject, with all its connexions. They were written in French by
M. Cerisier.
"It is to have a false idea of things, to think and to say, that
Holland and Zealand, taking an unjust advantage of their victories,
and of the weakness of their enemies, have dictated, with arms in
their hands, the outrageous and despotic conditions of holding their
ports shut up. We have only to cast our eyes upon the geographical
situation of Antwerp, we have only to recollect the first events of
the Belgic Revolution, to acknowledge this error. The city of Antwerp
for a long time made a part of the Belgic confederation; she entered
into the union of Utrecht, as she had entered into the pacification of
Ghent, she was even for several years the centre of the new Republic;
it was not until 1585, that she fell back under the yoke of the
Spaniards. But the Duke of Parma, in retaking Antwerp, could not
equally make himself master of all the forts situated below that city,
towards the mouth of the Scheldt. The confederates continued masters
of these, and even retook some places, which had been taken from them
in the course of the war. Thus they remained masters of the lower
navigation of this river, an advantage, which they caused to be
confirmed to them in the treaty of peace. In casting our eyes on the
other hand, on the memorable siege of Antwerp, it is to this city that
it is necessary to impute the misfortune of having an useless port,
since, by a more vigorous and wise defence, she would have remained in
the union, with all the advantages which resulted from it.
"Zealand and the city of Amsterdam, have always held the slavery of
the port of Antwerp of much importance. But it is very far from being
true, that this city, by recovering the liberty of her navigation,
would be able to draw away any considerable part of their commerce.
The maritime places of the United Provinces have had for several ages,
and many years before the revolution, a great navigation and a
flourishing commerce; this has been demonstrated by modern authors.
See the _Tableau de l'Histoire des Provinces Unies, et la Richesse de
la Hollande_. It is an error then to believe, that they were raised
upon the ruins of Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp; although we cannot deny,
that they have received some augmentation from them.
"But it is England, which has drawn the greatest advantages from them.
The cause is evident; it is, that the same troubles, which chased
commerce from these cities, agitated at the same time Holland,
Zealand, Friesland, and the neighboring Provinces. The factions of the
Houcks and the Cabeliaux, the Schieringers, and the Vetkopers, the
Litchembergs, and the Gunterlings, the Hekeren, and the Bronkhorst,
have nearly at the same time for many years, torn almost the whole
country, which forms at this day the Republic of the United Provinces,
in the times when Flanders was a prey to the most violent intestine
dissensions, when Ghent and Bruges held the Emperor Maximilian in
prison; and when the chastisements inflicted on these two cities,
drove out the industry, and commerce, which enriched them. The United
Provinces were the centre of the rebellion and the theatre of the most
afflicting calamities, when the cruelties of the Spaniards chased
commerce from the city of Antwerp. The most violent causes, in fact,
are necessary to drive commerce from a country where she has fixed her
residence. The powerful houses of commerce, the immense funds
necessary to carry it on, the credit, the industry, do not transplant
themselves easily from one country to another.
"We ought not to impute to slavery the fall of the commerce of the
Austrian Low Countries. We must ascend to that epocha, when the fiscal
and religious despotism of Spain carried into the Low Countries the
yoke of civil servitude and the flames of the Inquisition. Commerce
cannot harmonise with slavery, with the tyrannical exaction of
imposts, with persecutors, or with hangmen. It was principally to
London, that industry, and the merchants of Louvain, Ghent, Bruges,
and Antwerp, fled. Although Holland and Zealand were at the same time
a prey to similar misfortunes, and even still more terrible, they
found themselves in a condition to raise a powerful marine, to beat
their ancient masters, and to seize upon their spoils in the Indies.
It was upon their courage, upon their navigation, upon their
establishments in the Indies, and not upon the mouth of the Scheldt,
that they laid the foundations of a commerce, the richest and most
extensive that ever was.
"If all the Low Countries had remained attached to the confederation,
they would all have partaken of the riches, the industry, the power,
and the grandeur of the United Provinces. The Austrian Low Countries
were not able to recover their brilliant commerce, because they had
lost it. To repair this loss, it would have been necessary, that
Holland and England, filled with their manufactures, should have had
the complaisance to send them back all these manufactures with their
riches, their workmen, and their raw materials. It was only Louis the
Fourteenth who could in this respect take Philip the Second for a
model. If the Flemish and the Brabantians, should have again a source
of raw materials, and of workmen, would it be easy to recall industry
and naturalise it there, after so long an exile? The little progress
of commerce in those countries has many other causes, besides the
subjugation of one of its brooks. It is necessary to look for them in
the multitude and enormity of the duties imposed upon merchandises,
which enter, or go out of the Austrian dominions, duties, which are
repeated from one Province, and even from one city to another; it is
necessary to look for them in the tyrannical and insolent inquisition
of officers, with whom the frontiers are covered, in the fiscal and
iniquitous subjection, to which packages and travellers are exposed;
the former to a search, which exposes the goods to be spoiled, and the
other to an indecent and odious inspection. They have forced women to
strip themselves, even to their shifts, to discover, with a scandalous
avidity, effects subject to these odious taxes.
"A part of the commerce of Germany, and several Provinces of France
with Holland, would have no other market than the Low Countries, if
the imposts and the collection of them were not tyrannical. The
merchants of St Quentin, of Rheims, of Paris, will all tell you, that
the lawns, wines, and modes, which they send into the countries
situated upon the Baltic, would be embarked at Ostend, without those
armies of inquisitors like highwaymen, who drive away, by a perpetual
restraint, commerce, the friend of liberty. Add to this, the delays,
and the dearness of land-carriage, interrupted with barriers, in the
countries, where there are no canals; all these obstacles do not only
hurt the commerce of transportation, but also that of importation and
exportation. The foreigner, finding so many difficulties in spreading
his superfluities in those countries, is the less capable of taking
off theirs.
"Moreover, how many ameliorations may be made in the natural resources
of that country? Before they allow themselves in uncertain
speculations abroad, they should carry to the highest point, industry
at home. There are even reformations, which are very difficult, and
without which these countries will never hold the balance against
countries, in which the number, the celibacy, the riches, and the
laziness of the clergy, do not devour the industry of the people. Is
the slavery of the Scheldt then the cause, that Louvain is peopled
only with students and professors? Malines filled with attornies and
judges? That Mons, Tournay, Ypres, Ghent, and Bruges, are no longer
more than carcasses? If there were a means of reviving these cities,
would it not be by the enlargement and the safety of the port of
Ostend?
"Even if the ports of Ostend, of Nieuport, and Antwerp offered roads
free, safe, and commodious, would business fly to them for refuge,
and abandon the ports of Hamburg, Dantzick, Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Middleburg, Dunkirk, Rouen, Nantes, Rochelle, Bordeaux, the Elbe, the
Somme, the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the ports of the three
kingdoms of Great Britain, where it enjoys all the advantages and
facilities, which it can desire? The English themselves, who dazzle at
this day the Austrian Low Countries with the hope of a free and
flourishing commerce, would not they be the first to oppose this
revolution, if it had any appearance of success? It is their jealousy
of the prosperity of Amsterdam, which makes them clamor against the
subjection of the Scheldt. But they would clamor much louder, if the
liberty of the Scheldt should restore to the Low Countries the hope of
recovering their ancient commerce. All States seek with emulation to
augment the national industry. Russia, and even other northern States,
are making efforts and sacrifices to procure for themselves
manufactures. All countries, even Spain and Portugal, begin to
perceive that these things are more useful than _autos-da-fe_. The
Austrian Low Countries have them also. But could they augment them at
the expense of other countries; especially at a time, when so many
States pique themselves in having a warlike marine to maintain their
commerce and their national industry?
"But, it will be said, is it not manifest that the navigation of
Antwerp being opened, commerce, by reascending the river, would
diffuse her benign influence throughout all the extent of an
agreeable, and fertile territory, full of canals and great roads, &c.?
I answer again, why would not the ports of Bruges, Ghent, Ostend, and
Nieuport produce the same effect? It is even apparent, that these
ports would lose by the new outlet of Antwerp, the little commerce
which remained to them. In that case, Brabant would only raise itself
on the ruins or at the expense of Flanders. The liberty of this river
would enrich perhaps the interior of the country, but it would
certainly impoverish the coasts of the sea. They say it is unjust to
hold the Scheldt shut up; but would it not, on the contrary, be the
height of injustice to open again a navigation, assured to the
Hollanders by the natural consequence of a revolution universally
ratified, and by a long possession? What man, what State, would be
authorised to appropriate a thing to itself because it was for his
convenience? This rule, it is true, has in our days effected the
dismemberment of Poland, the invasion of Silesia, and the present war
of England against Holland. But in taking away the property of the
Dutch, with what right can one find fault with the violence of Russia?
"It will be said, that the restraint of a river dug by nature, for the
use of the inhabitants who live upon the banks, is contrary to natural
right, against which no prescription ever runs. But do not the
turnpikes, or fall-stops, with which these rivers are thickset,
contravene also the rights of nature? The house of my neighbor
intercepts the light, of which I have great occasion; have I the right
for this reason to pull it down?
"In one word, the mouth of the Scheldt is in the territory of the
United Provinces. The Republic, according to received principles, may
interdict the navigation of it to foreigners, as well as to its own
subjects. She excludes only the former; because she finds her
advantage in it, as the English find theirs in their famous act of
navigation, much more tyrannical than the subjection of the Scheldt.
The Belgians will say, the waters of this river wash and fertilize our
country in passing through it. But have not the French still a better
right to the same navigation, because this river takes its rise in
France? The Swiss would have a good grace to wish to arrogate to
themselves the free navigation of the whole course of the Rhone, the
Po, the Danube, and the Rhine, because these rivers flow from the
mountains of Helvetia. The subjection of the Scheldt was ratified in
1648, in the famous treaty of Munster, or Westphalia, whereof all the
powers of Europe are warranties, and which still passes for the basis
of the political system of Europe, and for a fundamental law of the
empire. We have seen in 1778, the Emperor himself obliged to renounce
a succession supported upon authentic titles, because the powers,
warranties of the peace of Westphalia, sustained, that this succession
was contrary to that treaty. And yet it is wished, that in full peace,
without title, without pretence, the Emperor should wrest from the
Dutch a property, the fruits of which will never indemnify them for
the sacrifices they have made for his house.
"They would have the Emperor an ambitious Prince, rolling the vastest
projects in his head. But with what eye will the other powers view an
usurpation, which they ought to seek to prevent by all the motives of
honor and of interest; even although it should be from the ambitious
idea of acting their part in the affairs of Europe? How? Shall he
expose himself in the present moment to spread the flames of a general
war in Europe, and to lose perhaps the Low Countries, which would be
from that moment surrounded by inimical powers. For what? To procure
to the inhabitants of Antwerp, the facility of conducting a few ships
into the German ocean.
"Holland is in the last degree of weakness, embarrassment, and
disunion; she has fear. Oh! yes; but the King of Prussia, but the
electors of Saxony and Palatine, but the King of France, would have
fear also; fear would unite them; and when one has a great deal, he
begins to have less fear.
"That which would make of Antwerp a new Sidon, or a new Carthage,
which would render this city the rival of Bordeaux, of Rouen, of
Amsterdam, and of London, would be infinitely prejudicial to the
French and the Russians. Either this business would be a part detached
from that of the ports of the channel, and of the Baltic sea, and, in
that case, France and Russia would not consent to build up a place of
commerce, which would flourish at their expense; they would oppose the
opening of a port, which would draw away the inhabitants from those,
which they are laboring to make flourish; or it would be composed of
branches torn from that which is done at the Texel, upon the Meuse,
and the Thames, and, in that case, they will refuse their consent to
this transplantation. If it is necessary, that the commerce of the
Dutch and the English should fall, Russia and France will choose to
take advantage of its decay, to transport it into their harbors."
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
* * * * *
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
Amsterdam, June 12th, 1781.
Sir,
The States of Holland and West Friesland are adjourned to the 27th. In
their last session, they consented to the augmentation of seventeen
thousand six hundred and eightysix land forces, according to the
plan, which the Council of State, in concert with the Stadtholder, had
formed, on the 18th of April, and which had been carried on the 19th
of the same month, to the Assembly of the States of the Province. They
have also taken the resolution to lend to the East India Company the
sum of one million two hundred thousand florins, at three per cent
interest, to be reimbursed in thirtythree years, in payments of
thirtysix thousand florins. The affairs of the Colony of Surinam are
about to engage the attention of government, according to a petition,
which the Deputies of the merchants of Dort, Haerlem, Amsterdam, and
Rotterdam, presented on the 6th, to the States of Holland and West
Friesland, and for which the merchants have demanded, in an audience,
which they have had of the Stadtholder, the support of His Most Serene
Highness. This petition was conceived in these terms.
PETITION FROM THE DEPUTIES OF DORT, HAERLEM, AMSTERDAM,
AND ROTTERDAM, TO HOLLAND AND WEST FRIESLAND.
"The merchants, deputies of the cities of Dort, Haerlem, Amsterdam,
and Rotterdam, represent in the most respectful manner, that the
mortal stagnation of navigation and of commerce, which cannot preserve
their well-being but by continual activity, has forced the petitioners
not to disguise any longer the fatal effects, and in circumstances,
when the naval force of the Republic is not yet in a state to procure
them a sufficient protection, to seek for themselves a succor, which,
in the extreme danger in which the colonies, which yet remain to the
State, and even the State itself, are found at this day, may serve
apparently to advance in more than one manner, the general interest
of this Republic; that the supplicants, both for themselves, and
speaking in favor and in the name of several thousands of their
fellow-citizens, have taken the part to present to their High
Mightinesses the States-General of the United Provinces, the petition,
a copy of which is here joined, and to which they respectfully refer,
as follows.
_Petition._