TO THE COUNT DE VERGENNES.
Paris, June 22d, 1780.
Sir,
I received this day the letter, which your Excellency did me the honor to write me on the 21st of this month.
I thank your Excellency for the confidence, which induced you to communicate this letter to me, and the continuance of which I shall ever study to deserve.
When your Excellency says, that his Majesty's Minister at Congress has already received orders to make representations against the resolutions of Congress of the 18th of March, as far as they effect his subjects, I am at a loss to know with certainty, whether your Excellency means only, that such orders have lately passed, and are sent off to go to America, or whether you mean, that such orders were sent so long ago as to have reached the hand of the Chevalier de la Luzerne.
If the latter is your Excellency's meaning, there is no remedy; if the former, I would submit it to your Excellency's consideration, whether those orders may not be stopped and delayed a little time, until his Excellency Mr Franklin may have opportunity to make his representations to his Majesty's Ministers, to the end, that if it should appear, that those orders were issued in consequence of misinformation, they may be revoked, otherwise sent on.
I will do myself the honor to write fully to your Excellency upon this subject without loss of time, and although it is a subject on which I pretend not to an accurate knowledge in the detail, yet I flatter myself I am so far master of the principles as to demonstrate, that the plan of Congress is not only wise, but just.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.