The following verbal insinuation, made to the Ambassador of Holland at the Court of Russia, was transmitted to Congress in my absence, and is now repeated by me, in order to complete the setts already forwarded.
"The affection of the Empress to the interests of the Republic of the United Provinces, and her desire to see re-established, by a prompt reconciliation, a peace and good harmony between the two maritime powers, have been sufficiently manifested by the step, which she has taken, in offering them her separate mediation.
"If she has not had the desired success, her Imperial Majesty has only been for that reason the more attentive to search out the means capable of conducting her to it. One such means offers itself in the combined mediation of the two Imperial Courts, under the auspices of which it is to be treated at Vienna of a general pacification of the Courts actually at war.
"It belongs only to the Republic to regulate itself in the same manner. Her Imperial Majesty by an effect of her friendship for it, imposing upon herself the task to bring her co-mediator into an agreement to share with her the cares and the good offices, which she has displayed in its favor. As soon as it shall please their High Mightinesses to make known their intentions in this regard to the Prince de Gallitzin, the Envoy of the Empress at the Hague, charged to make to them the same insinuation, this last will write of it immediately to the Minister of her Imperial Majesty at Vienna, who will not fail to take with that Court the arrangements, which are prescribed to him, to the end to proceed in this affair by the same formalities, which we have made use of with the other powers.
"Her Imperial Majesty flatters herself, that the Republic will receive this overture, as a fresh proof of her benevolence, and of the attention, which she preserves, to cultivate the ties of that friendship, and of that alliance, which subsists between them."
It does not appear by this insinuation, that the articles proposed by the two Imperial Courts, to serve as a basis for the negotiations of peace at Vienna, were communicated to the Dutch Minister at Petersburg, or the Russian Minister at the Hague, or by either to their High Mightinesses; as the word, Courts at war, is used, and no hint about the United States in it, the probability is that the articles are not communicated.
I must confess, I like the insinuation very much, because it may be in time an excellent precedent for making such an insinuation to the Minister of the United States of America.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.