I was received in State by two of the Lords at the head of the stairs, and by them conducted into the committee room, where the business is transacted. The committee consisted of one or more Deputies from each Province, together with the Grand Pensionary, Bleiswick, and the Secretary Fagel.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON TO JOHN ADAMS.
Philadelphia, August 29th, 1782.
Dear Sir,
Near five months have elapsed, since I have been favored with a line from you. Your letter of the 4th of March, is the last that has as yet found its way to America.
Let me entreat you, Sir, to reflect on the disgrace and discredit it brings upon this department, to be kept thus in the dark relative to matters of the utmost moment, and how impossible it is, without better information, to declare the designs or wishes of Congress, since they must be in some measure directed by the state of their affairs in Europe; and, yet, Sir, they have hitherto been left, in a great measure, to collect that state from private letters, common newspapers, or the communications of the Minister of France.
There is another circumstance, in which the reputation of our Ministers themselves, is materially concerned. Letters, announcing a fact, that is well known before their arrival, lose half their force and beauty. They cease to be interesting, and are read with indifference. You have done yourself great injustice frequently in this way, for though your letters have generally been particular, yet, from not being sufficiently attentive to the means of conveyance, we frequently have had the facts they related, published in the newspapers a month before their arrival. As one instance out of many, we received with your letter of the 11th of March, Amsterdam papers of the 30th, which informed us of the determination of Holland relative to your reception. We are told that you were received in your public character the 19th of April, and yet, Sir, we have not to this hour had any official information on that head. I am ready to make every allowance for the miscarriage of letters; but this should only urge our Ministers to multiply the number of their copies, particularly where the subject of them is important. I feel myself so hurt at this neglect, Congress are so justly dissatisfied at seeing vessels arrive every day from France without public letters at this very critical period, from any of our Ministers, that I fear I have pressed the subject further than I ought to have done. If so, be pleased to pardon my earnestness, and to impute it to my wish, as well to render this office more useful to the public, as to enable you to give Congress more ample satisfaction.
The advantages, which will be derived to these States from the acknowledgment of their political existence, as an independent nation, are too many and too obvious, not to be immediately and sensibly felt by them. I sincerely congratulate you on having been the happy means of effecting this beneficial connexion. We may reasonably hope, that your official letters will detail the progress of so interesting an event, and thereby enable us to form some judgment of the nature and principles of the government of the United Provinces. From the zeal they manifest to us, I should hope, that you would find no great difficulty in the accomplishing of one great object of your mission, the procuring a loan, which neither the probability or the conclusion of a peace will render unnecessary. On the contrary, I am inclined to believe, that our wants will be more pressing at the close of the war, when our troops are to be paid and disbanded, than at any other period; and as it seems to have been your sentiment hitherto, that money could be procured when our political character was fully known, I venture to hope, that you have availed yourself of your present situation to obtain it.