The Duc de la Vauguyon told me and M. Brantzen together, last Saturday, "if you had not signed when you did, we should not have signed when we did." If they had not signed when they did, d'Estaing would have sailed from Cadiz, and in that case nobody would have signed to this day. It is not possible for men to be in more disagreeable circumstances than we were. We are none of us men of principles or dispositions to take pleasure in going against your sentiments, Sir, much less those of Congress. But in this case, if we had not done it, our country would have lost advantages beyond computation.
On Monday, Sir, we pursued our visits, and today we finish. Yesterday at Court all the foreign Ministers behaved to us without reserve, as members of the Corps Diplomatique, so that we shall no longer see those lowering countenances, solemn looks, distant bows, and other peculiarities, which have been sometimes diverting, and sometimes provoking, for so many years.
I have the honor to be, &c.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
Paris, July 10th, 1783.
Sir,
In the present violent heat of the weather, and feverish state of my health, I cannot pretend to sit long at my pen, and must pray you to accept of a few short hints only.
To talk in a general style of confidence in the French Court, &c. is to use a general language, which may mean almost anything, or almost nothing. To a certain degree, and as far as the treaties and engagements extend, I have as much confidence in the French Court as Congress has, or even as you, Sir, appear to have. But if, by confidence in the French Court is meant an opinion, that the French Office of Foreign Affairs would be advocates with the English for our rights to the fisheries, or to the Mississippi river, or our Western Territory, or advocates to persuade the British Ministers to give up the cause of the refugees, and make Parliamentary provision for them, I own I have no such confidence, and never had. Seeing and hearing what I have seen and heard, I must have been an idiot to have entertained such confidence, I should be more of a Machiavelian, or a Jesuit, than I ever was, or will be, to counterfeit it to you, or to Congress.
M. Marbois' letter is to me full proof of the principles of the Count de Vergennes. Why? Because I know, (for it was personally communicated to me upon my passage home, by M. Marbois himself,) the intimacy and confidence there is between these two. And I know further, that letter contains sentiments concerning the fisheries, diametrically opposite to those, which Marbois repeatedly expressed to me upon the passage, viz. "That the Newfoundland fishery was our right, and we ought to maintain it." From whence I conclude, M. Marbois' sentiments have been changed by the instructions of the Minister. To what purpose is it where this letter came from? Is it less genuine, whether it came from Philadelphia, Versailles, or London? What if it came through English hands? Is there less weight, less evidence in it for that? Are the sentiments more just, or more friendly to us for that?