ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON TO B. FRANKLIN.
Philadelphia, February 13th, 1782.
Dear Sir,
We have been extremely alarmed at some communications, which the Minister of France made me from his last letters. They look extremely as if the Count de Vergennes imagined, that neither Spain nor Holland was anxious for our success. They discourage the idea of a loan from them, or even from France. Our letters from Holland confirm these conjectures, so far as they relate to that State. Mr Adams seems almost to despair of doing anything with respect to an alliance or loan, and from Mr Jay we have heard nothing in a very long time, and are ignorant of any steps he may have taken since the appointment of M. Del Campo to treat with him.
These mortifying disappointments oblige us, though reluctantly, to call upon France for further assistance. Your solicitations will be infinitely useful to your country, if they procure for it what I will venture to pronounce essential to their safety. In this spirit, the instruction, which I do myself the honor to enclose, has passed Congress, and a second resolution, which I also enclose, which leads to such information as will enable you to convince the Court of France, that their navy can nowhere be more effectually employed to distress the common enemy than in America. I own this consideration is a great relief to my feelings, when we make these importunate demands for money; and I hope it will enable you to press them with some degree of dignity.
That France can aid us is not to be doubted, for it is certain she never carried on a war that distressed her finances less. She has no expensive subsidies to pay; her money is expended either at home, or in a country from which it returns. Her army is not greatly increased, and her commerce under the protection of her fleets enjoys a security, that it seldom has experienced before. I would not, however, have you suppose, that this is the language I hold here. I know too well the necessity of making every exertion, which in our present impoverished situation we are capable of; and I neglect no means, which my present station puts in my power to call forth.
Congress have taken every wise measure for that purpose, and I firmly persuade myself, that we shall be able to form the most vigorous co-operation with such force as his Majesty may please to send out. I am confident that the peace must be made in America. Every blow here is fatal to the grand object of the present war; to the hopes, to the wishes, and to the pride of Great Britain. Other conquests she expects to have restored upon a peace; what is lost here she knows to be lost forever.
The daily complaints that we receive from seamen confined in England concur with humanity, and the national honor, to render some expedient for their relief necessary. I need not, I am persuaded, recommend this to your particular care. We have not yet obtained, at least as far as I can learn, a compensation for the prisoners taken by Paul Jones and returned to England. Is it impossible, either to settle a cartel in Europe, or to have the Americans confined there sent to New York for exchange? The last proposition is so much in favor of England, that it would probably be acceded to, and yet such is the distress of the people who have been long confined, that it would be desirable to have the offer made. I am just now applied to by a Mrs Simmonds, whose husband is the mate of a vessel, and has been two years confined in Mill Prison; it would be an act of charity to attempt to procure his relief. You will do me the favor to collect and transmit a list of the numbers confined in England, and, as far as possible, for the satisfaction of their friends, of the names.
We have not a word of intelligence to communicate, unless it be some little disturbances in the country, which has been distinguished by the names of New Hampshire Grants, and Vermont; and which it may be proper to mention to you, since the facility with which the British deceive themselves, and the address with which they deceive others, may render it a matter of moment in Europe, though in fact it is none in America. The bulk of the people of that country are "New England Presbyterian Whigs." Some of those, in possession of the powers of government, have more address than principle. Finding themselves exposed to inroads from Canada, they have tampered with that government, and pretended to be willing to form a treaty of neutrality with them during the war, and to return to the obedience of Britain on a peace. This has had the effect they intended, and in some measure defeated an expedition, which the enemy made last year, and retained their main body in inaction at Ticonderoga, while the parties they sent to the westward were beaten and dispersed by our militia. The secret has been discovered, is disavowed by the people, and such measures are now taken, that by the time the King of Great Britain and his Council, (before whom the propositions now lie) have formed a plan in consequence of them, they will be made the means of drawing them into new difficulties.
I presume that you keep up a constant correspondence with Mr Jay and Mr Adams, and assist them with your information and advice. I must beg the favor of you to transmit them this intelligence, that they may be prepared to meet any assertions of the enemy on that head. I take leave to repeat to you my desire to have the papers and political publications sent regularly to this office.