I have just received your letters of November 9th and December 3d. This is to inform you, and to request you to inform the Congress, that the preliminaries of peace between France, Spain, and England, were yesterday signed, and a cessation of arms agreed to by the Ministers of those powers, and by us in behalf of the United States, of which act, so far as relates to us, I enclose a copy. I have not yet obtained a copy of the preliminaries agreed to by the three Crowns, but hear, in general, that they are very advantageous to France and Spain. I shall be able, in a day or two, to write more fully and perfectly. Holland was not ready to sign preliminaries, but their principal points are settled. Mr Laurens is absent at Bath, and Mr Jay in Normandy, for their healths, but will both be here to assist in forming the Definitive Treaty. I congratulate you and our country on the happy prospects afforded us by the finishing so speedily this glorious Revolution, and am, with great esteem, Sir, &c.
B. FRANKLIN.
JOHN JAY TO B. FRANKLIN.
Paris, January 26th, 1783.
Sir,
It having been suspected, that I concurred in the appointment of your grandson to the place of Secretary to the American commission for peace at your instance, I think it right, thus unsolicited, to put it in your power to correct the mistake.
Your general character, the opinion I had long entertained of your services to our country, and the friendly attention and aid with which you had constantly favored me after my arrival in Spain, impressed me with a desire of manifesting both my esteem and attachment by stronger evidence than professions. That desire extended my regard for you to your grandson. He was then indeed a stranger to me, but the terms in which you expressed to Congress your opinion of his being qualified for another place of equal importance, were so full and satisfactory, as to leave me no room to doubt of his being qualified for the one above mentioned. I was, therefore, happy to assure you, in one of the first letters I afterwards wrote you from Spain, that in case a Secretary to our commission for peace should become necessary, and the appointment be left to us, I should take that opportunity of evincing my regard for you, by nominating him, or words to that effect. What I then wrote, was the spontaneous suggestion of my own mind, unsolicited, and I believe unexpected by you.
When I came here on the business of that commission, I brought with me the same intentions, and should always have considered myself engaged by honor, as well as inclination, to fulfil them, unless I had found myself mistaken in the opinion I had imbibed of that young gentleman's character and qualifications; but that not being the case, I found myself at liberty to indulge my wishes, and be as good as my word. For I expressly declare, that your grandson is, in my opinion, qualified for the place in question, and that, if he had not been, no consideration would have prevailed upon me to propose, or join in his appointment.
This explicit and unreserved statement of facts is due to you, to him, and to justice, and you have my consent to make any use of it that you may think proper.