For my own part, I confess I would not advise Congress to bind themselves to anything, that is not reasonable and just. If we should agree to revive the trade upon the old footing, it is the utmost that can, with a color of justice or modesty, be requested of us. This is not equal, but might be borne. Rather than go further, and deny ourselves the freight from the West Indies to Europe, at least, to Great Britain, especially rather than give away our own carrying trade, by agreeing that the ships of one State should not carry to Great Britain the produce of another, I would be for entering into still closer connexions with France, Spain, and Holland, and purchase of them, at the expense of Great Britain, what she has not wisdom enough to allow us for her own good.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
Paris, June 24th, 1783.
Sir,
The gazettes of Europe still continue to be employed, as the great engines of fraud and imposture to the good people of America. Stockjobbers are not the only people, who employ a set of scribblers to invent and publish falsehoods for their own peculiar purposes. British and French, as well as other politicians, entertain these fabricators of paragraphs, who are stationed about in the various cities of Europe, and take up each other's productions in such a manner, that no sooner does a paragraph appear in a French, Dutch, or English paper, but it is immediately seized on, and reprinted in all the others; this is not all; in looking over the American newspapers, I observe, that nothing is seized on with so much avidity by the American nouvellists, for republication in their gazettes, as these political lies. I cannot attribute this merely to the credulity of the printers, who have generally more discernment than to be deceived. But I verily believe, there are persons in every State employed to select out these things, and get them reprinted.
Sometimes the invention is so simple, as really to deceive. Such, I doubt not, will be that of a long paragraph in the English papers, all importing that Mr Hartley had made a treaty of commerce with us, or was upon the point of concluding one. Nothing is further from the truth. We have not to this hour agreed upon one proposition, nor do I see any probability that we shall at all, respecting commerce.
We have not, indeed, as yet, agreed upon a point respecting the definitive treaty. We are waiting for those instructions of yours, which you mentioned in yours of the 14th of April, which I have not yet received.