I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO B. FRANKLIN.
Amsterdam, August 25th, 1781.
Sir,
Last evening I received your Excellency's letter of the 16th of this month, accompanied with a letter from the President of Congress, containing the commissions you mention.
You desire to know what steps have already been taken in this business. There has been no step taken by me in pursuance of my former commission, until my late journey to Paris, at the invitation of the Count de Vergennes, who communicated to me certain articles proposed by the mediating Courts, and desired me to make such observations upon them as should occur to me. Accordingly, I wrote a number of letters to his Excellency of the following dates; July 13th, enclosing an answer to the articles sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twentyone. I would readily send you copies of the articles, and of those letters, but there are matters in them, which had better not be trusted to go so long a journey, especially as there is no necessity for it. The Count de Vergennes will readily give you copies of the articles and of my letters, which will prevent all risk.
I am very apprehensive that our new commission will be as useless as my old one. Congress might very safely, I believe, permit us all to go home, if we had no other business, and stay there some years; at least, until every British soldier in the United States is killed or captivated. Till then, Britain will never think of peace, but for the purposes of chicanery.
I see in the papers, that the British Ambassador at Petersburg has received an answer from his Court to the articles. What this answer is, we may conjecture from the King's speech. Yet the Empress of Russia has made an insinuation to their High Mightinesses, which deserves attention. Perhaps you may have seen it; but, lest you should not, I will add a translation of it, which I sent to Congress in the time of it, not having the original at hand.[2]