Philadelphia, July 1st, 1777.
Sir,
Herewith you will receive Commissions from the Congress of the United States of North America, authorising and appointing you to represent the said Congress as their Commissioner at the Courts of Vienna and Berlin. You will proceed with all convenient expedition to those Courts; visiting that first, which, on consultation with the Commissioners at the Court of France, shall be judged most proper. You will lose no time in announcing in form to those Courts the declaration of independence made in Congress on the fourth day of July, 1776. The reasons of this act of independence are so strongly adduced in the declaration itself, that further argument is unnecessary. As it is of the greatest importance to these States, that Great Britain be effectually obstructed in the plan of sending German and Russian troops to North America, you will exert all possible address and vigor to cultivate the friendship, and procure the interference of the Emperor and of Prussia. To this end you will propose treaties of friendship and commerce with these powers, upon the same commercial principles as were the basis of the first treaties of friendship and commerce proposed to the Courts of France and Spain, by our Commissioners, and which were approved in Congress the seventeenth day of September, 1776, and not interfering with any treaties, which may have been proposed to, or concluded with, the Courts abovementioned. For your better instruction herein, the Commissioners at the Court of Versailles will be desired to furnish you, from Paris, with a copy of the treaty originally proposed to Congress, to be entered into with France, together with the subsequent alterations that have been proposed on either side.
You are to propose no treaty of commerce to be of longer duration, than the term of twelve years from the date of its ratification by the Congress of the United States. And it must never be forgotten, in these commercial treaties, that reciprocal and equal advantages to the people of both countries be firmly and plainly secured.
There being reasons to suppose, that his Prussian Majesty makes commerce an object, you will not fail to place before him, in the clearest light, the great advantages, that may result from a free trade between the Prussian dominions and North America.
You will seize the first favorable moment to solicit, with decent firmness and respect, an acknowledgment of the independence of these States, and the public reception of their Commissioner as the representative of sovereign States. The measures you may take in the premises, and the occurrences of your negotiation, you will communicate to Congress by every opportunity.
It may not be improper to observe, that these instructions, and all others, which you may receive from time to time, should be kept as secret as circumstances will admit.
JOHN HANCOCK,
President of Congress.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.