Soon after my public reception by their High Mightinesses, the body of merchants of the city of Schiedam, were pleased to send a very respectable deputation from among their members, to the Hague, to pay their respects to Congress, and to me, as their representative, with a very polite invitation to a public entertainment in their city, to be made upon the occasion. As I had several other invitations from various places and Provinces about the same time, and had too many affairs upon my hands to be able to accept of them, I prevailed upon all to excuse me, for such reasons as ought to be, and, I suppose, were satisfactory.
The Deputies from Schiedam requested me to transmit from them to Congress, the enclosed compliment, which, with many other things of a similar kind, convinced me that there is in this nation a strong affection for America, and a kind of religious veneration for her just cause.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
ADDRESS,
Of the merchants of the town of Schiedam in Holland, to his Excellency John Adams, after their High Mightinesses the Lords, the States-General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, had acknowledged the freedom and Independency of the United States of North America, and admitted the said John Adams, as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy of the Congress of the said United States.
"If ever any circumstances were capable of recalling to the minds of the people of these Provinces, the most lively remembrance of the cruel situation to which their forefathers found themselves once reduced, under the oppressive yoke of Spanish tyranny, it was, no doubt, that terrible and critical moment, when the Colonies of North America, groaning under the intolerable weight of the chains, with which the boundless ambition of Great Britain had loaded them, were forced into a just and lawful war, to recover the use and enjoyment of that liberty, to which they were entitled by the sacred and unalienable laws of nature.
"If ever the citizens of this Republic have had an occasion to remember, with sentiments of the liveliest gratitude, the visible assistance and protection of a Being, who, after having constantly supported them during the course of a long, bloody war, which cost their ancestors eighty years' hard struggles and painful labors, deigned by the strength of his powerful arm to break the odious fetters under which we had so long groaned, and who, from that happy era to the present time, has constantly maintained us in the possession of our precious liberties; if ever the citizens of these Provinces have been bound to remember those unspeakable favors of the Almighty, it was no doubt at that moment when haughty Britain began to feel the effects of divine indignation, and when the vengeance of heaven defeated her sanguinary schemes; it was, when, treading under foot the sacred ties of blood and nature, and meditating the destruction of her own offspring, her arms were everywhere baffled in the most terrible and exemplary manner, her troops defeated, and her armies led into captivity, and at last, that haughty power, humbled by that heaven, which she had provoked, saw the sceptre, which she had usurped, fall from her enfeebled hands; and America, shaking off the cruel yoke, which an unnatural stepmother had endeavored to impose forever upon her, thanked bounteous heaven for her happy deliverance.
"If ever the inhabitants of this country, and those of this city in particular, have had a just cause for joy, and good grounds to conceive the highest hopes of prosperity and happiness, it was undoubtedly at that so much wished-for moment, when, with a unanimous voice, the fathers of the country declared the United States of America to be free and independent, and acknowledged your Excellency as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy of the illustrious Congress.
"Impressed with the various sentiments of respect, joy, and gratitude, with which the unspeakable favors of the Almighty towards both countries must inspire every feeling and sensible mind; encouraged besides, by so many happy omens, the subscribers, in behalf of the merchants and inhabitants of this city, have the honor to congratulate your Excellency as the Representative of the illustrious American Congress, and to assure you in the strongest terms, that if any event, recorded in the annals of our country, is capable of impressing us with the liveliest joy, and of opening to our minds the happiest prospect, it is that glorious and ever memorable day, when our august sovereigns, the Lords States-General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, solemnly acknowledged the independence of the United States of America; a step which, under the pleasure of God, must become the foundation of an unalterable friendship, and the source of mutual prosperity to the two Republics, whose union being cemented by interests henceforth common and inseparable, must forever subsist, and be constantly and religiously preserved by our latest posterity.