The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume IV Part 57

JOHN ADAMS.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Paris, April 4th, 1780.

Sir,

There is an anecdote from Malaga, which ought to be mentioned to Congress, because, it cannot fail to have serious consequences.

The Swedish frigate, the Illerim, of thirtyfour guns, commanded by Captain Ankerloo, on the 28th of February, at half after eight o'clock at night met an English privateer belonging to Minorca, of twentyeight guns. The Swedish Captain, after hailing the privateer, let her continue her course, and went on quietly his own; about half an hour after the privateer returning, ranged herself astern of the frigate, and unexpectedly discharged both his broadsides, loaded with langrage, which killed three sailors, broke the thigh and the right leg of the Captain, wounded the Lieutenant and some people of the crew. Ankerloo, who in the evening had been obliged by a violent gale of wind to draw in his guns and shut up his ports, not finding himself prepared for battle, his officers took immediate measures, with the utmost alertness, for repulsing the privateer, which did in fact at last receive one broadside from the frigate; but, upon the whole, she escaped in the night, by the force of sails and of oars. After this perfidy on the part of the English, Ankerloo would have entered Ma.r.s.eilles for the sake of dressing his wounds, but having met with contrary winds and bad weather for three days, he put into Malaga, where he went ash.o.r.e to the house of the Swedish consul, where he is since dead of his wounds.

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Paris, April 6th, 1780.

Sir,

It may be necessary to transmit the decree of Sir James Mariott, against the Dutch ship la Sybellina Hillegonda, in order fully to comprehend the proceedings, which I have sent before. The decree is this.

"The fact in this case is, a Dutch ship loaded with naval stores, for a port in France, under the convoy of not less than five men-of-war, and the commander of these men-of-war, not measuring his conduct by the line of the treaty, resists, fires upon the boat of the English Commodore, and forbids the execution of the treaty. The English Commodore returns the fire. The Dutch Admiral fires again, and strikes; so that the fact is to be adjusted, and it is of such a nature as has never before happened in the history of this nation. It falls unfortunately to my share, to decide upon these facts and their consequences.

"It is, nevertheless, a consolation, that although the judge of this court may decide, in the first instance, there is still a superior tribunal, in the last resort. This court ought to judge of the case of the treaty, since, in virtue of a special commission, under the great seal of the kingdom, the judges of the courts of admiralty are authorised and required to take cognizance of, and proceed judicially in all manner of captures, seizures, prizes, and reprisals, and decide upon them according to the course of the admiralty and the law of nations.

"The claimant disdains to found his right in any other way than upon the treaty. My idea is, that all the marine treaties, which subsist between two friendly powers, form but one code of laws, one great confederation, one indivisible union. They are, if it is lawful to make use of these sacred words, the Bible, the Book, or the Testament of the social contract between the nations, to be maintained inviolably, as a system, whereof we cannot break one part without dissolving the whole.

"The Dutch subjects have, in virtue of the treaty, particular privileges, superior to those of every other country, but they may overleap the bounds of these privileges, and from that time they ought to be weighed in the balance, like other neutral nations. To be found under a convoy is not, in itself, an infraction of the treaty, but the conduct of this convoy is to be considered.

"The fifth article of the treaty of 1674 is reciprocal. 'If any ship, belonging to the subjects of his Majesty of Great Britain, shall in open sea, or elsewhere, out of the dominions of the said States, meet any ships of war of the Lords the States, or privateers belonging to their subjects, the said ships of the Lords the States, or of their subjects, shall keep at a convenient distance, and only send out their boat, with two or three men only, to go on board such ships or vessels of the subjects of his Majesty, in order that the pa.s.sport, or sea-brief, concerning the property thereof, according to the form hereunder annexed, may be produced to them, by the captain or master of such ship or vessel, belonging to the subjects of his Majesty; and the said ships, so producing the same, shall freely pa.s.s; and it shall not be lawful to molest, search, detain, or force such ship from her intended voyage. And the subjects of the Lords the States shall enjoy in all things, the same liberty and immunity, they in like manner showing their pa.s.sport, or sea-brief, made out according to the form prescribed at the foot of this treaty.'

"The sixth article is, 'If any ship or vessel, belonging to the English or other subjects of Great Britain, shall be met making into any port belonging to an enemy of the Lords the States, or, on the other side, if any ship belonging to the United Provinces of the Netherlands, or other subjects of the Lords the States, shall be met in her way, making into any port under the obedience of the enemies of his said Majesty, such ships shall show, not only a pa.s.sport, or sea-brief, according to the form hereunder subscribed, wherewith she is to be furnished, but also her certificate or c.o.c.ket, containing the particulars of the goods on board, in the usual form, by the officers of the customs of that port, from whence she came; whereby it may be known whether she is laden with any of the goods prohibited by the third article of this treaty.'

"Such are the terms of this treaty, which this court will not declare to be now in force; but one of the parties may renounce it; and it would be from that time, so far forth, a good cause of annulling it.

It could not ever have been the intention of the contracting parties, that the merchant ships of the subjects of the States should become the transport vessels for the service of the King of France, nor that the men-of-war of the States should serve as a convoy to them. It is impossible to form an idea more unworthy of the sovereignty of the States. The idea of granting a convoy to all Dutch ships destined for the port of an enemy is offensive, and still more aggravating, when accompanied with resistance, or orders to resist, when they go so far as to reject _ipso facto_ all the ordinary ways of public justice, and to set at nought the articles, which had been established to prevent the consequences of the intervention of neuters, as parties in a war, by public acts; articles which stipulate a legal procedure for discussing all the points in controversy, before the courts of admiralty reciprocally; and in case the parties should not be satisfied, they ought to be finally heard by their respective sovereigns in council. Such is the tenor of the twelfth article of the treaty of 1674.

"In the present state of the cause, this court will not say, nevertheless, that the States have annulled the treaty; because the orders of Admiral Byland have not appeared, and his conduct may be disavowed by the States; but even the granting of a convoy, and above all of a squadron, is essentially offensive, since the Dutch subjects are already sufficiently armed by the treaty, and by the methods of redress prescribed, which are the same with all maritime nations. The party complaining follows the ship and the papers, which she has on board, into the jurisdiction of the place and country where he is carried, as the subject, who in the nature of things and proceedings, can only of necessity be judged there, where the original proofs exist; the judges specially const.i.tuted, for the decision of prizes, both in the first instance and in the last resort, are, by common consent, charged to hear and determine all national differences between powers who are friends and allies, like the Council of Amphyctions in ancient Greece. But seamen do not well comprehend this language. They speak roughly, like the mouths of their cannons. If this vessel had fired upon the boat, and any one had thereby lost his life, I think I should not have hesitated to condemn her upon general principles. Neither Admiral Byland, nor his instructions, are before me. I know not how to give a sentence against him or his vessels; nevertheless, he ought not to have fired upon the boat of Commodore Fielding; but he was bound to send to him his boat, and to propose an interview and an amicable conference. He might have made him a visit, which he immediately would have returned; and all the captains of the Dutch merchant ships might have been ordered on board the English Commodore, to produce their pa.s.sports and c.o.c.kets. The effect of his resistance is thus the cause, that, although I do not declare the treaty null generally, nevertheless, in retaliation to these vessels taken in time of resistance, I ought to declare the ship forfeited of its privilege, and foreclosed of the treaty, by the act of M. Byland.

There was certainly never any vessel under convoy without instructions, at least in her course, and without signals. If the claimants had not withheld them, it would have appeared, whether the Dutch Admiral ought, or ought not to have escorted these ships even into the ports of France, which would have aggravated the offence against the treaty. A convoy of a single ship, destined for the States, destined for the Colonies of the States, or loaded generally with innocent commodities, is, in itself, inoffensive; because, in these times, there are in all the seas little pirates, furnished with all sorts of commissions, American, French, Spanish, and English; but a squadron of a line of battle ships, and which appears force [?] even to the treaty, which they claim the benefit of, is a serious affair.

To engage in hostilities is not the way of protecting commerce; and those who have solicited the States to grant such a convoy, were rather factious Americans, or intriguing French politicians, than solid, sensible Dutchmen, true and real friends of their country.

There is certainly among them a number of worthy people, who can never desire to become, in fact, a Province, under the obedience of the King of France, or his resident Minister.

"The case of the Swedish convoy is not applicable to this case. That convoy had not made any resistance. The ships entered the Downs by the bad weather, and were there taken without their convoy, which came to anchor near them. This was represented, and the course of justice was followed. The ship's papers were produced directly in this court, the requisites were done, and the causes finally discussed according to the style of the admiralty, _velo levato_; no time was lost, either in contesting the justice or demanding right; and the captains of the ships returned contented with their vessels after they had been paid the freight, as well as the expense; and the naval stores, which they had on board, were purchased by the government, by virtue of powers granted to the Council of the Royal Marine, by act of Parliament, in conformity to acts of Parliament in former wars.

"The question, whether the hemp and flax are contraband, is clear.

Both of them have been adjudged such on all former occasions, when the quant.i.ty has been considerable, and particularly, when they are not of the produce of the country of the party which carries them. The flax is as necessary for sails, as the hemp for cordage; and if this court has once ordered that flax should be sold to the Commissioners of the navy, it was because it was of little value, and in very small quant.i.ty. I am sorry to learn, that the Navy Board makes any difficulty upon this subject. The iron on board was only for ballast."

I cannot go through with the whole of this decree for want of time; but the following curious and convenient doctrine ought not to be omitted.

"That, which in the natural or intellectual world is called quality, is not relative. Good and evil are relative. Everything is what it is, and acquires its denomination from comparison, degree, manner, quality, place, time, person, fault, &c. &c. These relations const.i.tute the metaphysical essence of every complex idea in the human understanding. Hence that source, without end, of disputes, the glory of the bar, and of the schools of philosophy.

"Grotius and Bynkershoeck agree, and who is there that will deny, that necessity gives a right to make ourselves masters of everything, without the seizure of which a nation cannot defend herself? As in relation to want, if the enemy, on one part, is in want of stores, the want to intercept them on the other is equal. And in relation to blockades, every port of the enemy is blocked relative to a neutral vessel loaded with stores, which is seized, and, by consequence, blocked, or hindered to go there. It imports little, that whether the blockade be made across the narrows at Dover, or off the harbor at Brest, or L'Orient. If you are taken, you are blocked. Great Britain, by her insular situation, blocks naturally all the ports of Spain and France. She has a right to avail herself of this situation, as a gift of Providence.

"In fine, it is necessary to observe, that the claimants, founding themselves upon the privilege of the treaty, have not a single paper on board to prove the property of the cargo, in which respect all are defective. The sentence then, is, that, under the circ.u.mstances of this case, the claim of privilege is rejected, and that the Dutch master be enjoined to produce his sailing orders, and certificates and c.o.c.kets from the Custom House of the port from whence the ship sailed, according to the stipulations of the sixth article of the treaty of 1674. The hemp and flax are condemned as contraband on board of this ship, and the owners of the iron are held to prove their property."

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

JOHN ADAMS.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Paris, April 7th, 1780.

Sir,

There are several articles of intelligence today, which are connected with the subject of my letter of yesterday. One is from the Hague, the 2d of April. "Thursday night last two couriers from Petersburgh arrived here, alighted at the hotel of the Prince Gallitzen, the Envoy Extraordinary of her Majesty the Empress of all the Russias to the States-General. One of the couriers set off immediately for London, to the Russian Minister who resides there. The Prince Gallitzen having been in conference the next day with the President of the a.s.sembly of their High Mightinesses, relative to the said despatches, this Minister sent back, the next night after his arrival, the same courier. From that time the report runs, that the object of these despatches was to communicate to the Republic the measures taken by Russia, with some of the northern powers, for ensuring respectively the safety of the navigation and commerce of their subjects, and to invite the States-General to enter into the same arrangements."

The other is from Constantinople, the 14th of February. "The privateers continue to vex the neutral ships in the seas of the Grand Seignior, by visiting and stopping them wherever they find them, and even without any discretion, at the entry of the ports and under the guns of our fortresses. The French frigate, the Gracieuse, which lay at anchor in the road of Cyprus, having learned that an English privateer had brought into the port of this island a French prize, sent to her some boats armed to retake her, which they could not accomplish, however, without having some men killed on both sides. The English consul having carried his complaints to the government of the Island, of a violation of the laws of nations and demanded a.s.sistance, he was so well succored, that the French were obliged to abandon the prize, and all of their nation who were in the island came very near being ma.s.sacred by the Turks. As the Porte has also been informed, that on the other hand the ship Smyrna, of Rotterdam, has run a risk of undergoing the same fate with the ship of Captain Kinder, of Amsterdam, and perhaps to suffer treatment still harder, and in sight of the city of Smyrna; she has not only resolved to send new orders to all the commandants, to enjoin them very seriously to observe a neutrality the most exact, by fulfilling their duty, but she has also testified her sensibility in regard to all these depredations to the Amba.s.sadors of the Courts of France and England, by sending to them last Sat.u.r.day a representation in writing, purporting, that as the Porte had not failed to observe, during the war between France and England, an exact and perfect neutrality to facilitate their commerce upon an equal footing, and to afford to their ships all possible safety in her seas, it was natural that she should, and ought to expect, that the two powers would answer her conduct with a sincere friendship. That at the news of the first differences arisen between the two kingdoms, there were conferences held with their Amba.s.sadors, in which it was agreed upon an equal footing; that the rules of the sea should not be violated, and that they should be, on the contrary, exactly observed and respected. That in consequence of this agreement, the Porte had not neglected anything to fulfil of fortresses and castles in the empire, to protect the ships of war and merchant-men against every attack, and not to suffer that any hostilities should be commenced in the ports of the Grand Seignior, and under the cannon and in sight of his fortresses.

"But in spite of all these measures, these powers had not taken care to observe them, which was the cause that no nation could now navigate freely and safely; that even to this time, the Porte had not received the least answer on the subject of a regulation of neutrality, which had been formed upon the footing of that which had been established during former wars between Christian powers, and of which communication had been made to the said Amba.s.sadors, with a view to put a stop to the intolerable irregularities which had taken place in his seas, and to the end to prevent in consequence continual complaints and representations. That the Porte was informed foreign privateers held his ports blocked up, and forced the ships which entered into them or went out, without even excepting the Turkish vessels, to submit to their unjust visits and searches.

"That such a conduct, being contrary to the honor of the empire, the Porte ought to determine, as soon as possible, and communicate to the belligerent powers a good regulation, to the end, to procure by that means repose, to his subjects, whom Providence had confided to his care, and to this end it was necessary, that the Amba.s.sadors of these two powers should be advertised to request their Courts, in the first place, to send, as soon as possible, to the captains and officers of ships armed for war, or privateers, precise orders, and as some time must pa.s.s before they can receive such orders, the Porte hopes that the gentlemen, the Amba.s.sadors, will be so good in the meantime, as to order the captains and officers to suspend their operations, and abstain from all acts of hostility.

"And as, in consequence of the ancient regulations, every time that any vessels of war or armed ships come into the seas of the Grand Seignior, the foreign Ministers were held to give notice to the Porte of the object of their expedition or voyage, of their destination, and of the time they were to stay, it could not but be regarded as unreasonable, and entirely contrary to the reciprocal friendship, if these formalities should not be observed, the Porte, considering it as one of its princ.i.p.al duties, to employ all possible means to procure the tranquillity of its merchants, to protect their possessions against all force and injustice, as also to grant its protection to the subjects of the belligerent powers, and those of other powers who are equally good friends of this empire."

The Porte finishes, by giving notice to the Amba.s.sadors, that the Capitan Pacha was ordered to oppose himself in a friendly manner to the enterprises of those, who should pursue the ancient proceedings, and to protect the merchants and the ships of all nations, who carry on commerce in the countries of this empire, whose sovereigns live in friendship with the Porte.

A third is a letter from Petersburg, 7th of March. "The rencounter which the Dutch convoy, on going out of the Texel the later end of December, under the command of Admiral Byland, had with the English squadron under Commodore Fielding, as well as the violent and hostile manner in which they made prize of this convoy, have occasioned here the greatest astonishment, and it is very much desired to know the consequences of this measure, which is generally considered as very offensive to the Republic of the United Provinces, and derogatory both to the treaties subsisting between the two nations, to the law of nations, and to the respect which ought to take place between two free and independent powers."

But that which is thought more extraordinary still, is, that the Court of London should have ordered a step so violent and insulting at a time when, having to maintain a war so dangerous as that against France, Spain, and the United States of America, her situation must appear not less anxious than dangerous, which this Court itself seems to acknowledge, by representing as she has done, that not finding herself in a condition to oppose the dangerous designs of the House of Bourbon, which, if you believe her, threaten the safety of all Europe, she believed herself consequently to have cause to demand succors here, as well as from the Republic of the United Provinces. However this may be, it is nevertheless notorious, that the solicitations of England have produced no effect here, which has given no small satisfaction to those, who consider in their proper point of light the designs and the conduct of this power, since the commencement of this war against the liberty of commerce and the navigation of free and independent powers, by means of which people in general seem so much the more pleased with the present resolution taken by her Majesty the Empress of all the Russias, relative to the said solicitation, as well as with the system of neutrality, which she has adopted, because without this wise measure there is no doubt but Great Britain would have pushed much further the irregularity of her proceedings.

The English, who are here, exert themselves as much as they can to justify and even to praise this proceeding of their nation towards the said convoy, but in vain have they attempted to induce the public to adopt this error, by advancing boldly, that the Court of Russia approves the violence, which they have exercised in this rencounter.

No man believes them, since in fact it is impossible that the Empress can approve an action so diametrically opposite to the tenor of treaties, to the law of nations, as well as to the dignity of a sovereign and independent power, the injustice of which is so notorious, that if it had been committed with similar circ.u.mstances upon the Russian flag, the Princess herself would have been the first to have condemned it. Thus the reports, which the English propagate here, of the approbation given to these proceedings, imply so much the more of a manifest contradiction to the sentiments and manner of thinking of the Empress and her Ministers, that it is well known, that from the beginning of the present troubles, the Court of Russia has made representations and complaints against that of London, for the violent and arbitrary manner of acting, which this last has indulged herself in, against the navigation and commerce of neutral powers, from whence it has resulted, that other nations, in imitation of this proceeding, have embarra.s.sed business more and more, until there exists no safety for any, which causes the greatest embarra.s.sment to merchants and the freighters of ships.

I ought to add to this letter, that the English emissaries, who propagate false news everywhere and about everything, having circulated a report, that the Porte was discontented with the peace made with Russia, the Grand Seignior thought it necessary to order the interpreter of the Court to declare to all foreign Ministers, that the Sultan and all his Ministers had every reason to be very well satisfied with the accommodation with the Empress of Russia, and that he was determined to maintain religiously all the articles contained in that treaty. All these things tend to show, that the state of Europe continues the same, and that England, instead of getting an ally, is likely to have a combination of all maritime powers to bring her to reason.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.