said, with a verbal commission from divers cities, to inquire whether
it was true, that Amsterdam had, as they heard, made a treaty of
commerce with the United States, and to express in that case their
willingness to enter into a similar treaty. Do you know anything of
this? What is become, or likely to become of the plan of treaty,
formerly under consideration?
By a letter from Middlebourg, to which the enclosed is an answer, a
cargo seized and sent to America, as English property, is reclaimed
partly on the supposition, that free ships make free goods. They ought
to do so between England and Holland, because there is a treaty which
stipulates it; but there being yet no treaty between Holland and
America to that purpose, I apprehend that the goods being declared by
the Captain to be English, a neutral ship will not protect them, the
law of nations governing in this case as it did before the treaty
abovementioned. Tell me if you please your opinion.
With sincere esteem and affection, I am ever,
B. FRANKLIN.
* * * * *
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
The Hague, May 21st, 1780.
Sir,
The express sent to Petersburg, with the answer of the States-General,
has not yet returned. In the meantime it is known here by a despatch
of the Resident of the Republic at Petersburg, that the news of the
Provincial Resolution of Holland, which always gives the tone to the
others, has caused there a very agreeable sensation, not only to the
Court of Russia, flattered to see the Republic enter into its views,
but also to the foreign Ministers resident there; and that the
Prussian Minister, above all, expressed himself very strongly on the
insolence of the English, and on the indignity of their procedure to
the Republic; in fine, that the system of the armed neutrality to
humiliate the English, gains force more and more at the Court, and
among the powers; which is very visible in the conversations among the
ministers.
I wrote some days ago to Amsterdam, to advise them to offer to the
State every fifth sailor of their merchant ships, in order to take
away the pretext for the scarcity of sailors in the fleet of the
Republic; and I recommended to them to prevent evil minded persons
presenting a counter address. They answered me, that the address
demands of the States the prompt protection of commerce, and offers
them whatever they may wish to draw from that commerce, whether it be
the every fifth or third seaman; and that though all have not signed
it, no one will dare to oppose it. This address will be presented next
week; and if I can have a copy of it soon enough, I will add hereto a
copy or translation.
We flatter ourselves soon to see Mr Laurens arrive here, as we have
been assured. It is time for the politics as well as for the credit of
America that some person, as distinguished as himself, should come
here. He cannot yet display a public character; but his presence will
do none the less good among the friends of America in this country. I
wish he was already with us.
I was going, Sir, to close this packet, when I received the visit of
M. Van de Perre, partner of M. Meyners, who form together the most
eminent commercial house at Middlebourg, in Zealand. He begs me to
support the claim that he has made through Messrs I. de Neufville &
Son, and by another way also to Congress on the ship Berkenbos, bound
from Liverpool to Leghorn, and loaded with herrings and lead for Dutch
and Italian account, taken by John Paul Jones, Captain of the
Continental frigate Alliance. M. Van de Perre is of the most
distinguished family in Zealand, Director of the East India Company,
nephew of M. Van Berckel, First Counsellor, Pensionary of Amsterdam,
the brave republican of whom all my letters make mention, and who is
the great friend of Americans. I have no need to say anything more to
recommend the affair of this vessel to Congress.
I have the honor to be, &c.
DUMAS.
* * * * *
JOHN ADAMS TO C. W. F. DUMAS.
Paris, June 6th, 1780.
Sir,
I thank you for your letter, in answer to mine of the 21st of May, and
for your kind congratulations on my arrival here.
Mr Brown, with whom you took your walks in the neighborhood of Paris,
has been gone from home some weeks, on his way hence. I should have
had much pleasure if I had been one of the party. I have rambled in
most of the scenes round this city, and find them very pleasant, but
much more indebted to art than to nature. Philadelphia, in the
purlieus of which, as well as those of Baltimore and Yorktown, I have
often sought health and pleasure in the same way, in company with our
venerable Secretary, Charles Thompson, will in future time, when the
arts shall have established their empire in the new world, become much
more striking. But Boston above all, around which I have much oftener
wandered, in company with another venerable character, little known in
Europe, but to whose virtues and public merits in the cause of
mankind, history will do justice, will one day present scenes of
grandeur and beauty, superior to any other place I have ever yet seen.
The letter of General Clinton, when I transmitted it to you, was not
suspected to be an imposition. There are some circumstances, which are
sufficient to raise a question, but I think none of them are
conclusive, and upon the whole I have little doubt of its
authenticity. I shall be much mortified if it proves a fiction, not on
account of the importance of the letter, but the stain that a practice
so disingenuous will bring upon America. When I first left America,
such a fiction, with all its ingenuity, would have ruined the
reputation of the author of it, if discovered, and I think that both
he and the printer would have been punished. With all the freedom of
our presses, I really think, that not only the government but the
populace would have resented it. I have had opportunities of an
extensive acquaintance with the Americans, and I must say, in justice
to my countrymen, that I know not a man that I think capable of a
forgery at once so able and so base. Truth is indeed respected in
America, and so gross an affront to her I hope will not, and I think
cannot go unpunished.
Whether it is genuine or not, I have no doubt of the truth of the
facts, in general, and I have reasons to believe, that if the secret
correspondence of Bernard, Hutchinson, Gage, Howe, and Clinton could
all be brought to light, the world would be equally surprised at the
whole thread of it. The British administration and their servants have
carried towards us from the beginning a system of duplicity, in the
conduct of American affairs, that will appear infamous to the public
whenever it shall be known.
You have seen Rodney's account of the battle of the 17th of April. The
sceptre of the ocean is not to be maintained by such actions as this,
and Byron's, and Keppel's. They must make themselves more terrible
upon the ocean, to preserve its dominion. Their empire is founded only
in fear--no nation loves it. We have no news.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
* * * * *
PROTEST OF THE CITY OF AMSTERDAM.
_Extracted from the Resolutions of the Council of that City of the
29th of June, 1780, and inserted in the Acts of the Provincial
Assembly of Holland, at the Hague, July 1st, 1780._
The Deputies of the city of Amsterdam, in the name and on the part of
their constituents, in order to justify themselves to posterity, have
declared in the Assembly of their Noble and Grand Mightinesses that
their Committee is of opinion that it is necessary, without loss of
time, to write on the part of their High Mightinesses to M. de Swart,
their Resident at the Court of Russia, and charge him to enter into a
conference, the sooner the better, with the Commissioners of her
Imperial Majesty of Russia, and of other neutral powers in the place
of his residence and elsewhere, where it shall be judged suitable, in
order to conclude together a convention for the mutual protection of
the commerce and navigation of neutral powers, on the basis of the
declaration made by her Majesty to the belligerent powers, and of the
resolution adopted on this subject by their High Mightinesses, on the
24th of April last, adding to it only, that said M. de Swart shall
take for the rule of his conduct the simplicity which her Imperial
Majesty of Russia herself has proposed in the explanations which she
made on five points at the request of his Swedish Majesty, and which
M. de Swart has communicated to their High Mightinesses, to the end,
that with such a provisional convention, they would be well pleased to
decree together the reciprocal protection of the merchant ships of
each other, which, fortified with the requisite papers shall be
nevertheless insulted on the sea; so that these merchant vessels being
in reach of one or more vessels of war of one of the allied powers,
wherever it may be, they may receive, in virtue of such an alliance,
any assistance; and that at the same time the contracting powers
engage to put to sea, provisionally, all the vessels of war they can,
and to give to the officers who shall command them necessary orders
and instructions that they may be able to fulfil these general,
salutary and simple views.
And that, further, as to arrangements to be made for the future, which
may require more particular detail, and which cannot be adjusted with
the expedition which the present perilous state of the navigation of
the neutral powers in general, and of this Province in particular
demands, M. de Swart will reserve all this for a separate article, of
which her Imperial Majesty of Russia made mention in the above named
explanations, and that he will declare in regard to this that their
High Mightinesses have given thereon their final and precise orders,
in which they will constitute one or more Plenipotentiaries who will
be able to treat of the necessary arrangements on this subject with
the neutral powers.
That said constituents, to give greater weight to their present
advice, add further to the above, that if this advice was rejected,
and if the affair was negotiated on the basis of the previous opinion,
exhibited on the 23d of June last, in the Assembly of Holland, the
consequence of it will be that the Russian squadron, which, according
to orders of her Imperial Majesty of Russia, must have already put to
sea, will appear in the seas bordering on this country, without giving
any protection to the commerce of this country; while, on the other
side, though commerce has been a long time charged with double duties,
their High Mightinesses, meantime, grant it no protection, because the
Colleges of Admiralty of this country profess themselves unable to do
it, or at least to put to sea sufficient convoys to avoid affronts
like those which the squadron under the orders of Rear-Admiral de
Byland had lately endured.
That from this total failure of protection to the navigation of this
country, on the one side, and from the continual insults of which
their High Mightinesses every day receive grievous complaints on the
other, there must naturally ensue an entire suspension of the commerce
of this country; and thence, it is easy to foresee, that this commerce
will be diverted and take its course by other European channels, and
that the burdensome impositions with which it is charged, in order to
obtain means for its protection being continued, will precipitate its
ruin.
That in this confusion of affairs, and in the extreme necessity in
which they find themselves, to take advantage of an offer of
assistance and succor so generously and magnanimously made and
proposed by her Imperial Majesty of Russia to this State, on a footing
so easy and so little burdensome; the Lords Constituents will leave
posterity to judge of the weight of the reasons alleged by some
members of the Assembly of their Noble and Grand Mightinesses in the
deliberation on this subject, as if the acceptance of said means for
the necessary protection of the commerce of this country, and in
particular of foreign succor, could be considered a means of drawing
on a war on the part of those, against whom it is found necessary to
defend ourselves, in making use of said means to all lawful purposes;
and as if we ought, for this reason, to decline the said offer of
assistance, unless her Imperial Majesty of Russia, beside her said
magnanimous plan of re-establishing the liberty of the seas, will also
engage with the other neutral powers to guaranty to this nation all
its possessions fixed and immovable, both in and out of Europe.
That the Lords Constituents will only remark, that in order that such
an attack on the fixed and immovable possessions of the Republic may
appear likely, it would be necessary at least, to allege some
plausible reasons or pretexts to defend it, in the eyes of all Europe,
from the most manifest injustice and violence; whereas it is clear
that such hostilities could not have any foundation on a protection of
commerce to which their High Mightinesses find themselves absolutely
forced by the open violation of the treaty of commerce concluded with
England in 1674; that thus the probability of an attack of this sort,
seeing the manifest injustice of such an enterprize, must vanish; and
this especially, if we consider the great number of enemies that
England has drawn upon her, and that it would be madness to increase
the number; that such being the case, the said suppositions are of too
small weight and too far removed from all probability to refuse the
means which are offered of protecting the commerce of the subjects of
the State, and that to refuse an aid so powerful while it is not in a
condition to protect its commerce by its own unaided forces, will be
evidently to renounce all protection possible, while the burdensome
imposts under which commerce, in expectation of some protection, has a
long time groaned, and still groans, would, against all reason, remain
in their rigor.
That in addition to this the Lords Constituents will remark further,
that it appears by the successive despatches of M. de Swart to their
High Mightinesses on this affair, that he insists strongly on
hastening the business, and on sending, the sooner the better,
necessary instructions for this purpose, after the example of Sweden,
who has already instructed her Minister to conclude the said
convention. That this is the more necessary because we know that all
sorts of indirect means are set to work to deprive the Republic of the
advantage of an alliance so beneficial, and to involve it in a war
with France.
From this it is clear that such pernicious views will be accomplished,
if not only they put off the completion of the convention, but also,
as is but too apparent, if they evade it altogether by making her
Imperial Majesty of Russia propositions of guaranty, which not only
are entirely foreign to the plan which this Princess has laid before
the eyes of Europe, but which her Majesty, in the explanations she has
given, has roundly declared she would never listen to.
In fine that the Lords Constituents are of opinion, that it is
necessary to satisfy the wishes of her Imperial Majesty of Russia, by
making the declaration in question on the part of their High
Mightinesses to the belligerent powers, and by assuring her Majesty
that as soon as said convention shall be signed, their High
Mightinesses will make the said declaration to the Courts of the
belligerent powers.
Meantime the committee referred thereon to the better advice of the
honorable Council. On which, having deliberated and the voices having
been taken, the Burgomasters and Counsellors thanked the committee for
the trouble they had taken and agreed to the above advice.
A. VAN HINGELANDT.
* * * * *
JAMES LOVELL TO C. W. F. DUMAS.
Philadelphia, July 10th, 1780.
Sir,
I know not how I can profess all the regard which I feel for you,
without appearing, on the one hand, to do it upon slight grounds, or,
on the other, to have delayed it too long.
I have been steadily in Congress without once visiting my family in
Boston, since January, 1777, and from May, that year, have been a
member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs; consequently, I am well
informed of your truly republican spirit, your particular affection
for these States, and your industry in their service, most of your
numerous letters, down to December 30th, 1779, having come to hand.
The honorable gentleman who will deliver this, being also a member of
Congress, has a just esteem for you, and promises himself much
advantage from an opportunity of conversing with you. Mr Searle is
well able to make a due return of the benefits from the fund of his
intimacy with American state affairs, his extensive commercial
knowledge, and his science of mankind gained by former travels.
I shall shortly write to you again by another respectable gentleman of
our assembly, and I will use every means to make him the bearer of
what you have so rightfully solicited, as a faithful _first_
correspondent of our Committee, from whom you will, probably, have
regular official letters under a new arrangement of a secretaryship,
which has been vacant from the days of a confusion excited by an
indiscreet and illiberal publication here, on the 5th of December,
1778, and which you have read with grief.
In the meantime, I hope you will receive kindly this individual
testimony of cordial friendship, from, Sir, your very humble servant,
JAMES LOVELL.
* * * * *
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
The Hague, July 15th, 1780.
Sir,
Since my last of the 21st of May, nothing has passed of much interest
in the Assemblies of this Province, to deserve repetition. I send an
account of all that passes to Dr Franklin at Paris, almost every post.
The fitting out of ships of the Republic for convoy goes on slowly,
and the resolutions in this respect, and for the negotiations with
Russia, drag equally slow. The English party, led by the English
Ambassador, and by another person who leads the majority here,
continue to perplex, delay, and cross everything; and he who is at the
head of all, follows their impulses. In a word, the English intrigue
more here than in all Europe besides. The difficulties they excite in
Germany and foment on the subject of the coadjutor of Munster and
Cologne, are intended to embarrass this Republic, and hinder it from
being successfully occupied in the re-establishment of its navy. It
was in agitation to make choice of a Prince of Austria for coadjutor,
and, of consequence, for future Elector of Cologne. The King of
Prussia is opposed to it; and France also. England, in the name of
Hanover, favored the views of the House of Austria. This may kindle a
war in Germany.
The protest here annexed of the minority in the Chapter of Munster,
is a paper as important as it is well done. I received it in German
and translated it, and while I am writing this, a copy of it is
making.
I have nothing more to add, except that a body of ten thousand
Prussians, quartered in Westphalia, have orders to hold themselves
ready to march to Munster on the first signal.
The misfortune of Charleston has animated the courage of the
Anglomanes here, and filled our friends with consternation. I do my
best to encourage them, and I succeed. In spite of the intrigues of
the English, they will gain nothing important here, because there must
be unanimity in the resolutions for war or peace.
I have the honor to be, &c.
DUMAS.
* * * * *
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
The Hague, July 22d, 1780.
Sir,
As everything is here in the inactivity of summer, nothing new has
occurred. The States of the Province of Holland do not assemble till
the 26th of this month. It is to be wished that we may soon receive
news from America, which will raise again the courage of the friends
of the United States, to whom the misfortune of Charleston has caused
much pain, in proportion as it has reanimated those who favor your
enemies. The latter, in the meantime, forge and utter every day rumors
injurious to the United States, such as, that they are about to
submit. "The Congress," say they, "is disunited and ready to dissolve;
the southern Provinces successively yield, and they flatter themselves
in England, that those in the north will follow their example." The
King himself flatters his Parliament with this idea. I can, for the
present, only oppose patience to all this, and keep myself mostly out
of sight; for they look on me as a lost man, and one who will be soon
abandoned by America herself. Besides, my feeble health, which has not
been able to resist this shock and a concurrence of many others,
forces me to this inaction for a time.
Two Plenipotentiaries depart hence to regulate at Petersburg with the
Empress of Russia, the armed neutrality. The Court of Denmark has
followed the example of Russia, in making the same declarations to the
other powers. It appears that the affair of Munster will not trouble
the peace of Germany. This election must be made the 16th of next
month, and, probably, the Archduke will be coadjutor.
_July 24th._ The sudden declaration of Denmark, unforeseen by all the
world, much embarrasses those here who hope to see the armed
neutrality fail. Amsterdam has protested against sending
Plenipotentiaries to Petersburg, to whom embarrassing instructions
have been given. She wishes, with reason, that they would be content
simply to send full powers to M. de Swart, Resident of the Republic at
Petersburg, with orders to conform to the resolution of their High
Mightinesses, which is positive and clear on the accession to said
armed neutrality. It is expected that Sweden will make, on the first
opportunity, a like declaration. Then the opposition will not be able
to force the Republic to recede, without making themselves odious.
We hope by the next post, among other things, to receive good news
from the combined fleet of the Count de Guichen and Don Solano; as
also from M. de Ternay, and from the continent.
I have the honor to be, &c.
DUMAS.
* * * * *
WILLIAM CARMICHAEL TO C. W. F. DUMAS.
Madrid, July 24th, 1780.
Dear Sir,
I confess myself very remiss in not answering your favor of the 21st
ultimo sooner. The removal of the Court from Aranjues to this city,
and a bilious disorder which has oppressed me more than a month, and
which still afflicts me, have in part, been the reason. I have no news
to communicate to you, which can console you for our late misfortunes;
I can assure you, however, that they do not deject me. _Per aspera ad
astra._ Heaven does not intend to exempt us from the adversities,
which have befallen other nations, who struggled for their liberty, by
giving as almost full and instantaneous enjoyment of it. I have full
confidence in the perseverance of our countrymen. They will, I hope,
act with more vigor in consequence of their misfortunes. I have
received letters from America, dated in the end of April, and the 1st
of May, which speak of the loss of Charleston as certain, and which
predict other successes of the enemy in the Northern States, but which
show no despondency.
I shall pay implicit obedience to the request you make me, with
respect to your family, and you may rely upon me, when I tell you that
as long as I have any influence, or any friends in the councils of
America, they shall not want strenuous advocates, and this letter
will always be a memento that would put me to the blush, should I be
deficient in a promise, which I think myself even in justice to my
country obliged to endeavor to fulfil in the best manner possible. The
Spanish, or rather allied fleet, has returned to Cadiz, except a few
vessels which cruise near that port. The Count de Estaing is expected
at St Ildefonso in about a week, the Count being now at that place. I
go there this week.
I see that the _Courier de l'Europe_ mentions that Mr Jay has received
his _conge_, &c. &c. Not a word of truth. The English papers sent our
commissioners from France frequently, yet a treaty was made by these
same _conged_ commissioners. I have received your cypher safe. Begin
when you please your observations on men and things. I shall be much
obliged to you, to separate and seal up all the letters you have ever
received from me, unless it be this, under a cover for me, which, in
case of death, which heaven forbid, you will direct to me, delivered
to my orders.
My best compliments to your family, and Messrs de Neufville, and
believe me ever, your friend and servant,
WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.
* * * * *
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
The Hague, July 25th, 1780.
Sir,