With great esteem, and best wishes for your success, &c.
B. FRANKLIN.
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Leyden, April 18th, 1781.
Sir,
I feel myself happy, that Congress have made it my duty to consult your Excellency upon the mission, with which they have charged me, for the Court of St Petersburg. To this end I have already laid before you all the papers, which I have received from Congress, any way relating to it, and also my correspondence with his Excellency, the Count de Vergennes, and Dr Franklin, upon the same subject, as well as my letters to the President of Congress from the time I received this commission. From all these your Excellency will be fully instructed in the several matters, on which I wish to have the benefit of your advice; but to bring some of them more immediately under your view, I beg leave to state the following questions.
Whether all circumstances considered, your Excellency thinks it expedient for me to proceed to St Petersburg, in the character of a private citizen of the United States only, and to wait there for a favorable moment to announce my public character?
Or whether, previous to my going in such a character, you judge it expedient for me to communicate my design to Prince Gallitzin, Ambassador at the Hague (secreting from him at the same time my public character) and to take his opinion thereon, according to the intimation given to me by the Count de Vergennes at our conference?
Whether it is advisable to communicate my real character to the Court of St Petersburg, and to ask their permission before I undertake the journey?
Whether in case you think it advisable for me to proceed to St Petersburg, in a private character only, without further communications to any one, you conceive it to be the intention of Congress, that I should present their resolutions, relative to the rights of neutral vessels, to the Court of St Petersburg on my arrival there, or whether this is left to my discretion, to be regulated by the then state of affairs at that Court?