The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume IX Part 41

Whenever he comes, he may dispose of my faithful services.

I have the honor to be, &c.

DUMAS.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] See this Declaration and the Memorial in _John Adams's Correspondence_, Vol. IV. pp. 488, 490.

B. FRANKLIN TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Pa.s.sy, April 23d, 1780.

Dear Sir,

I am much pleased with the account you give me of the disposition with which the proposals from the Empress of Russia have been received, and desire to be informed from time to time, of the progress of that interesting business.

I shall be glad to hear of your reconciliation with ---- because a continuance of your difference will be extremely inconvenient. Permit me to tell you frankly, what I formerly hinted to you, that I apprehend you suffer yourself too easily to be led into personal prejudices, by interested people, who would engross all our confidence to themselves. From this source have arisen, I imagine, the charges and suspicions you have insinuated to me, against several who have always declared a friendship for us in Holland. It is right that you should have an opportunity of giving the _carte du pays_ to Mr Laurens, when he arrives in Holland. But if in order to serve your particular friends, you fill his head with these prejudices, you will hurt him and them, and perhaps yourself. There does not appear to me the least probability in your supposition, that the ---- is an enemy to America.

Here has been with me a gentleman from Holland, who was charged, as he 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 a.s.sured. 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.sembly of Holland, at the Hague, July 1st, 1780._

The Deputies of the city of Amsterdam, in the name and on the part of their const.i.tuents, in order to justify themselves to posterity, have declared in the a.s.sembly of their n.o.ble 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 a.s.sistance; 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 const.i.tute one or more Plenipotentiaries who will be able to treat of the necessary arrangements on this subject with the neutral powers.

That said const.i.tuents, 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sistance 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 Const.i.tuents will leave posterity to judge of the weight of the reasons alleged by some members of the a.s.sembly of their n.o.ble 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 a.s.sistance, 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 Const.i.tuents 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 Const.i.tuents 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 Const.i.tuents 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 a.s.suring 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.