The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume VII Part 11

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

The Hague, July 25th, 1783.

Sir,

It is the general opinion here both among the members of the States, and at the _Hotel de France_, that the delays of the definitive pacification are contrived by the Court of London, in order to set all their instruments at work in this Republic, to induce it to renew its ancient connexions with Great Britain, particularly their alliance, offensive and defensive, by which each power was bound to furnish the other, if attacked, a certain number of ships and troops. Against this the patriotic party is decided, and they are now very well satisfied with the Grand Pensionary, Bleiswick, because he openly and roundly takes their side, and the Court is said to be discontented with him for the same reason. There is, no doubt, an intelligence and correspondence between the two Courts of London and the Hague, to bring about this point. The Grand Pensionary told me yesterday, that the Court of London desired it, and there were persons here who desired it, and he knew very well who they were; but that most certainly they would not carry their point. Van Berckel, Visscher, and Gyselaer, all a.s.sured me of the same, and added, that the fear of this had determined them not to send a Minister to London, but to go through with the negotiation at Paris, although they were all highly dissatisfied with the conduct of France, and particularly with that of the Count de Vergennes.

They all say, he has betrayed and deserted them, played them a very bad trick, (_tour_) and violated his repeated promises to them. They do not in the least spare M. Berenger and M. Merchant, who conduct the French affairs here in the absence of the Duc de la Vauguyon, but hold this language openly and freely to them. These gentlemen have sometimes found it hard to bear, and have winced, and sometimes even threatened; but their answer has been more mortifying still; "Do as you please, drive the Republic back into the arms of England, if you will. Suppress all the friends of France, if you choose it." And some of them have said, "we will go to America." They all say, that France had the power to have saved them. That the acquisition of Tobago was no equivalent to France for the loss of the Republic, &c. &c. &c. They are all highly pleased with the conduct of their own Amba.s.sador, Brantzen, with his activity, intelligence, and fidelity. They all say, that they would send a Minister to London to negotiate there, if they were sure of being able to carry an election for a man they could depend upon. But the Court here would have so much influence in the choice, that they would run a risk of sending a man, who would insensibly lead them into a revival of the old ties with England, which, they say, is enslaving the Republic to that kingdom.

I learn here from all quarters, a confirmation of what I had learned before at Paris from M. Brantzen and the Duc de la Vauguyon, viz. that the Duke of Manchester had given them no answer, nor said a word to them for six weeks, in answer to the propositions they had made; among which was an offer of an equivalent for Negapatnam. They offered some establishments in Sumatra and Surat. Lately the Duke of Manchester has received a courier, and has given an answer, that a real equivalent might be accepted. No answer is given to any other point, and this is vague; so that another courier must go to London and return.

Parliament is now up, and perhaps the Ministers may now be more attentive, and less timorous.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

Amsterdam, July 28th, 1783.

Sir,

I find, upon inquiry, that there are in this Republic, at Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Dort, near one hundred and thirty sugar-houses. The whole of the raw sugars produced in Surinam, Berbice, Essequibo, and Demarara, are wrought in these houses; and, besides, raw sugars were purchased in Bordeaux and Nantes, after being imported from the French islands, in French bottoms. Raw sugars were also purchased in London, which went under the general name of Barbadoes sugars, although they were the growth of all the English Islands, and imported to London in British bottoms. I have learnt further, that great quant.i.ties of raw Brazil sugars were purchased in Lisbon, and that these were cheaper than any of the others. All these raw sugars were imported into Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Dort, and there manufactured for exportation. We must endeavor to obtain a share in this trade, especially with Lisbon, or the Western Islands.

Since it is certain, that neither Portugal, France, nor England has been able to manufacture all their raw sugars, but each of them sold considerable quant.i.ties to the Dutch, I suppose that we may undoubtedly purchase such sugars in future in Lisbon, Bordeaux, Nantes, London, and perhaps Ireland, and carry them where we please, either home to America, or to Amsterdam, or to any part of Europe, and there sell them, and in this way promote our own carrying-trade, as well as enable ourselves to make remittances. I cannot see why the English, or French, should be averse to their sugars going to America directly; and if they insist upon carrying them in their own ships, we may still have enough of them. The Dutch have the most pressing commercial motives to bring home their West India produce; yet they would really gain the most by opening a free communication with us, because they would the most suddenly make their colonies flourish by it.

Mola.s.ses and rum we shall have, probably, from all the islands, English, French, and Dutch, in our own bottoms, unless the three nations should agree together to keep the whole trade of their islands in their own ships, which is not likely.

I have made all the inquiries I could, and have sown all the seeds I could, in order to give a spur to our loan. Three thousand obligations have been sold, and the other two thousand are signed; but at this time there is a greater scarcity of money than ever was known. The scarcity is so great, that the agio of the bank, which is commonly at four or five per cent, fell to one and a half. The Directors, at length, shut up the bank, and it continues shut. The English omnium, which at first was sold for eight or ten per cent profit, fell to one and a half. The scarcity of money will continue until the arrival of the Spanish flotilla at Cadiz. Seven eighths of the treasures of that flotilla will come here, and make money plenty. Then we may expect, that my obligations will sell.

In the meantime, I have great pleasure in a.s.suring you, that there is not one foreign loan open in this Republic, which is in so good credit, or goes so quick as mine. The Empress of Russia opened a loan of five millions, about the same time that I opened mine. She is far from having obtained three millions of it. Spain opened a loan with the House of Hope, at the same time, for two millions only, and you may depend upon it, it is very far from being full. Not one quarter part of the loan of France upon life-rents, advantageous as it is to the lender, is full. In short, there is not one power in Europe, whose credit is so good here as ours. Russia and Spain, too, allow of facilities to undertakers and others, in disposing of their obligations, much more considerable than ours; yet all does not succeed. You will see persons and letters in America, that will affirm, that the Spanish loan is full, and that France and Spain can have what money they please here. Believe me, this is all stockjobbing gasconade. I have made very particular inquiries, and find the foregoing account to be the truth. Of all the sons of men, I believe the stockjobbers are the greatest liars. I know it has been given out, that the Spanish loan, which was opened at Hope's, was full the first day. This I know has been affirmed in the hearing of Americans, with a confidence peculiar, and with a design, I suppose, that it should be written or reported to Congress. But I am now a.s.sured, that it is so far from being true, that it is not near full to this hour. Let me beg of you, Sir, to give Mr Morris an extract of this, because I am so pressed for time, that I cannot write to him.

Upon further inquiry concerning sugars, I find, that the Dutch were used to purchase annually considerable quant.i.ties of the raw sugars of Spain, as well as of France, England and Portugal. Some of these they obtained by a clandestine trade between Curacoa and Havana, and St Domingo; but the greater part were purchased at Cadiz.

I suppose our merchants and musters of vessels will be as adroit at inventing and executing projects of illicit trade, as others. But this is a resource, that Congress and the States cannot depend on, nor take into their calculations. Illicit trade will ever bear but a small proportion to that which is permitted. And our governments should take their measures for obtaining by legal and honorable means from Spain, Portugal, France, England, Holland, and Denmark, all the productions which our people may want for consumption, for manufacture, and for exportation.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

TO ROBERT MORRIS.

Amsterdam, July 28th, 1783.

Sir,

Upon inquiry of those who best know, I see no probability of success from any application to authority in this country, for reasons which I have explained to our Minister of Foreign Affairs. Our only resource is in the public opinion, and the favor of the nation.

I know of nothing which would operate so favorably upon the public, as the arrival of a few vessels with cargoes of American produce, addressed to your bankers, and appropriated to the payment of interest. The report of such an event would greatly augment our credit, by spreading the opinion of our ability and disposition to pay.

It would be presumption in me, at this distance, to undertake to advise you, who are upon the spot, and much better informed. But I beg leave to suggest the question, whether an application of Congress to the States would not succeed? Suppose Congress should represent to the States the necessity of an exertion, in order to obtain a loan at present, to enable you to satisfy the most urgent demands of the army, and other public creditors, until the States can agree upon some permanent establishment, and should recommend to each State to furnish a cargo of its produce, in proportion to its rate upon the list. For example, South Carolina and Georgia a quant.i.ty of rice or indigo; Virginia and Maryland, of tobacco; Pennsylvania, of wheat or flour; and the Northern States, of fish or any other thing. Suppose these cargoes, which need not be expensive for the Thirteen States, should be sent to Amsterdam or anywhere else in Europe, the proceeds of sale to be remitted to Amsterdam to your bankers. The reputation of this, if well planned, adopted, and executed, would give a strong impulsion to your loan, if adopted here.

I am but just arrived, and have not yet seen our bankers. Sat.u.r.day and Sunday are usually spent at country seats. But before I leave this place, I shall be able to inform you more precisely, whether you may depend on anything from hence. No pains of mine shall be spared. The British stocks are so low that we may hope for something. If a Minister is sent to London, you should give him a commission to borrow money. If he conducts the matter with secrecy and caution, he may probably obtain a considerable sum there. There are monied men in that country who wish us well. There are others who may easily be inspired with more faith in our funds, than they can rationally have in their own. If upon advising with proper persons, he should not judge it prudent to open a loan there, he might easily put things in a train for some individuals to purchase obligations in your loan in Amsterdam. So dismal are the prospects in England, that many men are on the wing to fly, and some would be willing to transfer their property across the Atlantic.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

The Hague, July 30th, 1783.

Sir,

I have been the more particular in my letters to you concerning that extensive manufacture and commerce of refined sugars in this country, because the proximity of all the sugar colonies to us renders a share in it naturally useful and convenient, both to us and them. Fifty thousand hogsheads of raw sugar are annually wrought in this Republic, and exported at a great profit to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, and Italy. At Amsterdam I visited a number of respectable merchants, in order to discover their sentiments concerning the communication between us and their Islands and sugar colonies. They all agree, that St Eustatia and Curacoa are and will be commercial Islands, open and free to all our vessels. St Martin's is divided between the French and Danes and the Dutch, whose share of it does not flourish. The colonies upon the continent, Surinam, Berbice, Demarara, and Essequibo, are at a greater distance from us. But they will be open to our vessels and their cargoes, because they all agree, that those colonies cannot subsist without our horses, lumber and provisions, nor without the sale to us of their mola.s.ses. We shall be allowed to take in return mola.s.ses, with which some quant.i.ties of sugar, coffee, and other produce are always smuggled, as they say. But although nothing has been as yet determined, it is the general opinion, that the produce of the colonies must be brought home in Dutch ships, as heretofore, mola.s.ses excepted.

From the Secretary of the West India Company I have obtained a few minutes, in so bad French, that I almost despair of rendering them intelligible. I have attempted it, however, in the following translation, viz.

"In the grant of the West India Company, renewed, or more properly newly erected, in the year 1700, continued in 1730, prolonged afterwards in the year 1760 for two years, and in the year 1762, from the first of January to the thirtyfirst of December, 1791, are found the limits fixed, only for the inhabitants of these Seven United Provinces, under the name of the United Company of these Provinces, upon the coasts and country of Africa, computing from the Tropic of Cancer to the southern lat.i.tude of the Equinoctial Line, with all the Islands in this district, situated upon the said coast, and particularly the Islands of St Thomas, Annebon, Islands of Principia and Fernando Po, as also the places of Essequibo and Baumenora, situated upon the Continental Coasts of America, as also the Islands of Curacoa, Amaba and Buen Aire.

All the other limits of the ancient grant being open for the commerce of all the inhabitants of the Republic, without exception, upon condition, however, that if the Company, oriental and occidental, should judge proper to navigate to the Islands situated between the coasts of Africa and America, beginning at the Ascension and further south, or any of them, and should occupy it before any other should have a private grant, with exclusion of all others for so long time as it shall occupy its places, and in case they should desist, these places should return under the second cla.s.s, open for the navigation of every individual of the Republic, paying an acknowledgment, &c. That the said particulars, trading in the said districts, shall be obliged to acknowledge the Western Company, and to pay them for the right of convoy, and consequently in form of acknowledgment, viz. for the productions and merchandises for the West Indies, two per cent, and returning from thence into these Provinces, two per cent more for the commodities in return.

And further, the ships navigating to places farther distant in America, contained in the ancient grant, both in going and returning, should pay five florins per last, or more or less as their High Mightinesses shall judge proper to determine hereafter; observing, nevertheless, that these five florins per last shall not be demanded of ships navigating to the Caribee Islands, which shall pay the ordinary duty for convoy to the Colleges of the Admiralty from which they sail, and the said private navigators shall be held, moreover, for the satisfaction of the Western Company, to give sufficient caution, that they will not navigate, nor cause to be navigated, the places contained in the first cla.s.s, ceded to the Company with exclusion of all others. And if any one is found to act contrary, and to navigate to any place situated in the prescribed limits, and granted to the Company, his ship and cargo shall be confiscated and attacked in force, by the ships belonging to the said Company; and if such ships and merchandises or commodities, shall be sold or entered into any other country or foreign port, the owner and his accomplice shall be liable to execution, for the value of the said ships and merchandises or commodities.

"The Company has also the right to require an acknowledgment of all those who shall navigate, import or export any merchandise to or from places belonging to the said Company, notwithstanding they may be subject, and may belong to the domination of other Kings or Princes, situated within the limits stipulated in the grant; and especially of every foreign vessel, bringing any commodities or merchandises from the West Indies, or the limits stipulated in the grants into the Provinces, whether upon its own account, or freight, or on commission, whether such foreign vessel shall come directly from the West Indies; and the limits of the grant, into the Provinces, or whether she shall have carried her cargo to other countries or kingdoms, for what reason soever this may be done. Excepting only in case the merchandises of the proprietor should by negotiation be changed in nature, and that the duty of this country fixed to the place should be paid, which any one alleging shall be obliged to prove sufficiently, according to the amount of the merchandises.

Declaring, moreover, for the further elucidation of the said grant, that under the name of the New Low Countries, in consequence of the three per cent, which the Company has a right to require for the merchandises sent there, or brought from thence, is understood that part of North America, which extends itself west and south of the northern part of Newfoundland as far as the Cape of Florida, and for what regards the payment of the two per cent under the name of the West Indies, to be computed from the Cape of Florida, to the river Oronoco, and the Islands of Curacoa. For what concerns the other places of America, contained in the most ancient and precedent grant, in regard to the five florins per last, upon the vessels there navigating, shall be understood all the Carribee Islands, Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Porto Rico, as also all the other coasts and countries, computing from the river Oronoco aforesaid, by the straits of Magellan, Le Maire, or other pa.s.sages or straits, situated under these, as far as the strait of Aryan, both upon the sea of the north, and the Islands situated upon the other side, and between them, as also the southern countries, situated between the two meridians, touching at the east the Cape of Good Hope, and in the west the eastern part of New Guinea, inclusively."

If this paper is not very clear to Congress, it is not more so to me, and perhaps to the Dutch themselves. There is a dispute likely to arise between the West India Company and the College of the Admiralty about it, which will be explained further as it proceeds, by whatever Minister you may send here.

Upon the whole matter of our communications with the European establishments in the West Indies; we shall carry freely our commodities to the French and Dutch, excepting, perhaps, flour to the French, which however will be carried, I suppose, to St Lucia and Port Royal, as well as St Eustatia and Curacoa, St Thomas's and St Martin's, and there sold to any nation that will purchase it. Mola.s.ses and rum we shall bring away freely from the French and Dutch. And if we can obtain of them the liberty of carrying sugars, coffee, &c. from their possessions in the West Indies to their ports in Europe, giving bonds with surety to land them in such ports, it will be as much as we can expect. If they will allow raw sugars, coffee, cotton, &c. to be sent freely to the United States in their own vessels, this would be an advantage for us, though not so considerable as to bring them in ours. What the English will do is uncertain. We are not to take the late proclamation for a law of the Medes. The Ministry who made it are not firm in their seats. If Shelburne comes in we shall do better; and, to be prepared to take advantage of so probable an event, you should have a Minister ready. We have one infallible resource, if we can unite in laying a duty or a prohibition. But this measure must not be hastily taken, because by negotiation, I apprehend, the point may be carried in England. To this end it may be proper to instruct your Minister, and authorise him to say, that the States will find themselves obliged, against their inclination, to lay a prohibition or heavy duty upon all West India goods imported, and all American productions exported in British bottoms, if the trade is not regulated by treaty upon an equitable footing.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

The Hague, July 31st, 1783.

Sir,

The last evening at Court in the house in the Grove, where all the foreign Ministers supped, the Count Montagnini de Mirabel, the Minister Plenipotentiary from the King of Sardinia, took an opportunity to enter largely into conversation with me. As he and I were at a party of politics, while the greatest part of the company were at cards, for two or three hours, we ran over all the world, but nothing occurred worth repeating except what follows.