This affair, in America, is a very tender and dangerous business, and requires all the address, as well as all the firmness of Congress, to extricate the country out of the embarrassment arising from it; and there is no possible system, I believe, that could give universal satisfaction to all; but this appears to me, to promise to give more general satisfaction, than any other that I have ever heard suggested. I have added copies of the whole correspondence.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
COUNT DE VERGENNES TO JOHN ADAMS.
Translation.
Versailles, June 30th, 1780.
Sir,
I have received the letter, which you did me the honor to write me on the 22d inst. on the subject of the resolution of Congress of the 18th of March last. I have already informed you, that it was by no means my intention to analyse this resolution, as it respects the citizens of the United States, nor examine whether circumstances authorise the arrangement or not. I had but one object in writing to you with the confidence I thought due to your knowledge and your attachment to the alliance, which was to convince you that the French ought not to be confounded with the Americans, and that there would be a manifest injustice in making them sustain the loss with which they are threatened.