The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume IX Part 49

Sir,

At length the treaty of commerce has pa.s.sed, and was approved day before yesterday in the States of Holland; and the States-General proposed immediately a conference with Mr Adams, to put a final hand to it.

_August 19th._ The States of Holland separated on the 17th, after having resolved and decreed instructions for the Plenipotentiaries, which the Republic sends to treat with Mr Fitzherbert, in conjunction with France and her allies. They talk, among other things, of acting in all respects in a communicative manner, and in concert with the Ministers of the King of France, and the other belligerent powers, in the preparatory and preliminary negotiations, which they may begin with the Amba.s.sador of Great Britain, to do nothing without them, and to be a.s.sured above all of the sincere and unequivocal intentions of the British king, to leave for the future the Republic in the full enjoyment of the rights of neutrality, established in the Russian declaration of the 28th of February, 1780.

I have the honor to be, &c.

DUMAS.

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Philadelphia, September 5th, 1782.

Sir,

It was not till within these few weeks, that I received your favor of the 4th of April last, together with the interesting paper it enclosed, since which time we are informed that your prediction relative to the reception of Mr Adams has been verified. It would have given me great pleasure to have learned so important an event, with the steps that immediately led to it from your pen. Your usual punctuality induces me to believe that your letters have been unfortunate, since I cannot ascribe this omission to neglect. When you do me the honor to write again, be pleased to enter minutely into the subject; since everything that relates to it is not only important in itself, but will be so much the object of curiosity hereafter, that it should have a place among our archives.

It would be a great advantage to you and to us, if you maintained such a correspondence with your sea-ports as would enable you to avail yourselves of every opportunity of writing to us, as it would give your letters the charms of novelty, and preserve to you the character of attention, and to us, as it would enable us to confirm or contradict the accounts, that we continually receive by private letters, or through the enemy's papers, some time before we have your relation of them.

The enemy have at length evacuated Savannah, and in all probability Charleston, by this time; since, on the 7th of August they gave notice in general orders for the tories to prepare themselves for such an event. Their fleet, consisting of fifteen sail of the line, arrived yesterday at Sandy Hook. The French fleet, under the Marquis de Vaudreuil had arrived some time before at Boston, where he unfortunately lost one of his ships, which struck upon a rock and sunk in the harbor. Congress, willing to testify their sympathy in this misfortune, have presented the America, a ship of seventyfour guns, to his Most Christian Majesty. She is in such a state that she can in a short time be fitted to join his fleet.

We wait with the utmost impatience some account from Europe of the state of the negotiations for a general peace.

The caution of the enemy in keeping within their posts, will probably render this an inactive campaign, though we never had a finer or better appointed army than at present.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Philadelphia, September 12th, 1782.

Sir,

Just after I had closed the letter you will receive with this, I was honored by your despatches from the 10th of May to the 9th of July inclusive. You will easily believe, Sir, that I received great pleasure from the important intelligence they communicate; and the more so as we had been long in the dark with respect to your transactions.

I am sorry that the packet which is to carry this, leaves me no time to enlarge, but this will be the less necessary, as I shall write very fully to Mr Adams.

With respect to your own affairs, I can only say that you have my sincerest wishes for your prosperity and promotion. I have already reported upon the subject, but what the issue will be, I cannot yet venture to predict. I know Congress to be very sensible of your a.s.siduity and attachment; and if anything prevents their rewarding them as they would wish, it will be the present state of their finances, which requires the most rigid economy.

The change in the British Administration will induce, it is imagined, a similar change in measures here. We are in hourly expectation of hearing of the evacuation of Charleston, which had been formally announced to the inhabitants, who came out in crowds to demand pardon with the concurrence of General Leslie. It is probably too late to countermand that order, although they will in all likelihood still retain New York, contrary to what had appeared to have been their determination, before the arrival of the packet. Happily the continuance of the war will be much less burdensome to us now, than at any former period; not only because habit has reconciled us to it, and introduced system in our mode of conducting it, which makes it less inconvenient to the individual, but because I think I may say without boasting, that there is not at this time a better disciplined or a better disposed army in the world; scarce a man among them who has not been repeatedly in action. They are now, too, completely clothed and armed, an advantage they never before enjoyed. We are at present just in the situation in which free people should always wish to be. Peace will not come unwelcomed, nor war unprepared for.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

The Hague, September 27th, 1782.

Sir,

My last came down to the 4th of September. There has been an important resolution of this day taken by the States of Holland, const.i.tuting a commission of five Deputies, accompanied by the Grand Pensionary, to seek of the Prince the cause of the bad state of the maritime forces of the Republic, and of their inactivity.

_October 3d._ The abovenamed committee have been received by the Prince with all the honors due to Sovereigns, and have opened conferences with him. The same day, their High Mightinesses in secret session having deliberated on the Memorial of the French Amba.s.sador, by which he had made them a proposition "to send ten ships of war to Brest, to be there joined by the vessels of the King, and to act with them against the common enemy, either in Asia or Europe," have resolved, that the Prince be requested to designate immediately the demanded squadron, viz. five vessels of sixty guns, three of fifty, two frigates, and a cutter for this purpose, to depart if the winds will permit before the 8th of October, to avoid the risk which would attend them after that time of being intercepted by an enemy of superior force.

_October 11th._ The officer designated to command the said squadron arrived here the 4th, while the wind coming round, became all at once favorable on the 5th to depart; and he reported to the Prince, who did not communicate the report until the 7th, in secret session, that the squadron was not in a state to go to Brest, for want of provisions, cordage, sails, anchors, clothes for the seamen, and other necessary articles;[46] on which the committee abovenamed presented themselves today to the Prince, to express their surprise and ask an explanation.

The Prince professed that he had no account to render but for the past, and none for the present or the future; at least till a new resolution of their n.o.ble and Grand Mightinesses. On their side, the committee conceiving with reason "that the resolution which was committed to them, contained particular instructions to look into the points which it specified, and particularly a general order to report on all subjects relating to the marine, and especially the direction of the present war, as much as should appear to them necessary to dissipate all obscurity," have in consequence made their report to the a.s.sembly.

_October 16th._ Their n.o.ble and Grand Mightinesses having deliberated on the report, all the cities were ready to conform to it except Schiedam, la Brille, and Medemblick, which have taken it _ad referendum_, the final resolution being deferred; but it will be adopted as reported next week, at least by the majority, which is sufficient in this case.

His Excellency Mr Adams departed this morning, the 16th of October, for Paris. In taking leave of the President and Secretary of their High Mightinesses the States-General, he did me the honor to present me as _Charge d'Affaires_ of the United States; which is an indispensable custom. He had before advised the Grand Pensionary of it, to whom I shall make tomorrow a visit of politeness in consequence.

_October 18th._ A young officer, (De Witte,) convicted of high treason, for having attempted to a.s.sist the enemy in an invasion of the coast of Zealand, was about to be tried by the High Council of War, which is wholly dependent on the Prince, when the States of Holland solemnly signified to the Prince that he ought to cause prosecution to be stayed before this tribunal, as incompetent, and carry it up before the Court of Justice of Holland and Zealand. This High Council of War, is, besides, odious to the nation, and regarded as tyrannical and unconst.i.tutional.

I have not spoken in this letter of our treaty of amity and commerce with this Republic, signed finally by both parties the 8th of this month, because Mr Adams will give you this detail better than I can. I shall content myself with saying, that I have every reason to be persuaded that he is satisfied with the zeal, with which I have fulfilled the tasks which he has required of me, in the operations which have preceded this signature, and pray G.o.d that the United States may gather from it the most abundant fruits.

_October 22d._ I am anxious to see an answer to the extract I sent to your Excellency, agreeably to the wish and permission of Mr Adams, of a certain letter which he wrote me. For so long as I am not openly recognised and suitably sustained by Congress, my precarious condition here is cruel, in the midst of the Anglomanes, who wish to see me perish ign.o.bly, and in the bosom of a family whose complaints and reproaches I fear more than death. Mr Laurens, in his hasty pa.s.sage through this country, was perfectly sensible of it. He knows that I serve the United States constantly, without respect of persons. "_You have been slighted_," are his own words; and when I testified to him my regrets for his departure from Europe, he had the goodness to add, that these regrets were contrary to my interest. Permit me, Sir, to commend them to you, and if Mr Laurens has returned to you safely, as I hope, on the arrival of this, will you express to him the sentiments of the most affectionate respect which I retain for him, as well as for all the great men in America, who have served under the sublime principles, which have animated me as well as them; and in which I, as well, as they, will live and die.

I am, with great respect, &c.

DUMAS.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] The 12th of September, the Prince on his return from the Texel, reported positively to their High Mightinesses, that all was there ready, that the vessels were in a condition for sea and for action, and waited only for his orders.

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

The Hague, November 15th, 1782.

Sir,

Yesterday morning, after a conference with his Excellency the Duc de la Vauguyon, I went in a post chaise to Rotterdam and Dort, in order to advise our friends in these two cities of some changes about to be made in the instructions of their Ministers Plenipotentiary at Paris, to deprive the English Minister of all pretext for conferring with those of the other belligerent powers without them. I succeeded to the satisfaction of his Excellency, and our friends were duly informed and disposed, when they received this morning, while I was returning, letters on this subject from the Grand Pensionary. My journey has gained the time which would have been lost, if they had, on re-a.s.sembling here taken the thing _ad referendum_.

_November 17th._ I had the pleasure to receive this morning, on behalf of the Amba.s.sador, absent at Amsterdam, the news of the re-admission of M. Van Berckel, First Pensionary of Amsterdam, to the a.s.sembly of their n.o.ble and Grand Mightinesses, where he will re-appear on the 20th, radiant as the sun, _disjectis nubibus_.

There has arrived a circular letter from Friesland, to take away from the Prince the direction of affairs. I shall have it, and will add it to the gazettes.