I would submit it to you, whether it would not be most advisable to spend as much time as possible at the Hague, and to form connexions with the Ministers of the powers not interested in our affairs. They are frequently best informed, because least suspected, and while your public character is unacknowledged, and you can visit without the clog of ceremony, I should conceive it no difficult task to engage the friendship of some among them.
But it is time to let you breathe; this I shall do without closing my letter, reserving the remainder of it for the communication of the most agreeable intelligence you ever received from America. The enclosed prints will announce one important victory to you, and we are in hourly expectation of the particulars of another, which will enable you to open your negotiations this winter with the utmost advantage.
October 24th. I congratulate you, Sir, upon the pleasing intelligence which, agreeable to my hopes, I am enabled to convey to you; enclosed you have a letter from General Washington to Congress; the terms granted to Lord Cornwallis, his fleet and army, and the letters that passed previous to the surrender of both. I make no comments upon this event, but rely upon your judgment to improve it to the utmost; perhaps, this is the moment in which a loan may be opened with most advantage. The want of money is our weak side, and even in the high day of success we feel its pressure.
As you may not perhaps be fully acquainted with the steps that led to this important victory, I enclose also an extract of my last letter to Dr Franklin. The British fleet consisting of twentysix sail of the line, including three fifties as such, with five thousand land forces, and General Clinton himself on board, sailed the 19th for the relief of Cornwallis. Count de Grasse is also out with thirtyfour sail of the line. I shall keep this open as long as possible, from the hopes of communicating an interesting account of their meeting.
November 1st. I am under the necessity of closing this without being able to give you any other account of the fleets, than that the British have not yet returned to New York; nor are we certain that the Count de Grasse has yet left the Chesapeake. If anything in the nature of a Court calendar is published at the Hague, you will be pleased to send me one or two impressions of it, as it may be of use to us.
I am, Sir, &c.
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
Amsterdam, October 25th, 1781.
Sir,