"I have now the honor of communicating to your Excellency a copy of certain instructions I have just received from Congress, dated the 28th of May, 1781, and which were included in the despatches, which your Excellency was so obliging as to deliver to me the evening before the last, viz.
"It is their instruction, that you continue to acknowledge on all suitable occasions, the grateful impression made on these States by the friendly disposition manifested towards them by his Catholic Majesty, and particularly by the proofs given of it in the measures which he has taken, and which it is hoped he will further take for preserving their credit, and for aiding them with a supply of clothing for their army.
"You are also authorised and instructed to disavow in the most positive and explicit terms, any secret understanding or negotiation between the United States and Great Britain, to assure his Catholic Majesty that such insinuations have no other source than the insidious designs of the common enemy, and that as the United States have the highest confidence in the honor and good faith, both of his Most Christian and his Catholic Majesty, so it is their inviolable determination to take no step, which shall depart in the smallest degree from their engagements with either.'
"It gives me pleasure to observe that these instructions confirm, in the fullest manner, the assurances and professions I have heretofore made to your Excellency respecting the sentiments and dispositions of the United States, and I flatter myself that his Majesty will be pleased to consider the assurances they contain, as receiving unquestionable proofs of sincerity from the offer I have already made to confirm them by deeds, no less important to the interests than, I hope, consistent with the views and desires of his Majesty.
"I cannot omit this occasion of presenting my congratulations on the success of his Majesty's arms at Pensacola. This event cannot fail of being followed by important consequences to the common cause, and may perhaps induce the enemy to expect greater advantages from concluding a reasonable peace, than continuing to protract an unrighteous war.
"Having understood, shortly after receiving my letters from your Excellency, that the Court had also received despatches from Philadelphia, I presumed that the communication of any gazettes from thence, which indeed contain all the intelligence I have, would be useless, and therefore did not send them; but on considering that it was possible that the papers I had might be of later date than those which your Excellency might otherwise receive, I now take the liberty of enclosing two, which contain accounts somewhat interesting. If they should be new to your Excellency, I beg that their not being sooner sent will receive an apology from the abovementioned circumstance; and that your Excellency will remain assured of the perfect respect and consideration with which I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN JAY."
I also took the earliest opportunity of mentioning to the Ambassador of France, that my letters from America gave me reason to believe that our union was daily growing more warm and intimate, and that Congress, in writing of their affairs here, had expressed themselves in the strongest terms of attachment to his Most Christian Majesty, and not only approved of my communicating freely and confidentially with his Ambassador here, but also directed me in express terms to endeavor, in the course of my negotiations, to include and promote the interests of France.
The Ambassador was much pleased. He told me his letters assured him that the best understanding subsisted between the French and American troops, and that much good might be expected from the increasing harmony and intercourse between the two countries.
The Court removed to St Ildefonso without the Minister's having either given any instructions to M. Gardoqui, answered my abovementioned letters, or taken the least notice of my late representations to them about the Dover cutter, &c.