TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
St Petersburg, September 15th, 1781.
Sir,
In my letter from Berlin I did myself the honor to give your Excellency an account of my route, as far as that city. A duplicate of that letter will accompany this. I was detained there nine days, the first part of which time was lost by my illness, and the rest in waiting for my carriage. I set off from thence the 2d of August, and arrived here, travelling day and night, on the 27th, New Style, having stopped in this route (sometimes to recruit a little, and sometimes to make the reparations to my carriage, necessary in so long a journey) at the following places, viz. Dantzic, Konigsberg, Memel, Riga and Narva, all of which are ports of consideration, and lay in my way.
I made during my short stay in them as full inquiry into the nature of their commerce as circumstances would admit of. I do not find that the exports from any of them, Riga excepted, are calculated for our markets, or that we can derive any advantage from them, till we engage in circuitous voyages and become their carriers. The great article of Riga is cordage of all sorts, which I am told is the best in all these countries. They export considerable quantities of hemp likewise, to say nothing of articles similar to our own, but this article can perhaps be better purchased at St Petersburg, than anywhere else. I expect to receive shortly a minute account of all the exports and imports of Riga, with their prices current, &c. Being no merchant, my account of these things it is to be expected will be defective, but this being made a part of my duty, I shall endeavor to execute it in the best manner I am able.
It is to be observed, that the Dantzickers, the Prussians and the Russians are improving the present opportunity, which the Dutch war affords them of increasing their own navigation, with the utmost industry; and the great rise of freights enables them to do it with much advantage. What effect this may have upon the sovereigns of the two last countries, to slacken their pace towards the acknowledgement of the independence of ours, which would lead to a speedy peace, I cannot say. The subjects of the Emperor are reaping the same advantages from the war.
An opportunity by water from hence to Amsterdam now presents itself, and this being the safest way, I shall send my despatches under cover to the care of Mr Adams, and shall desire him to break them up, and read them before he forwards them for America, as the best means of making him fully acquainted with all that has yet taken place here, especially with the sentiments of the French Minister, which appear to me to deserve our particular attention. Though I am no better satisfied with the reasons given in support of his opinion, in his second letter, than I was with those in his first, yet I thought it not prudent to press him any further, with my opposition to them, and that it was quite sufficient to give him to understand that I still intended to adopt the measure mentioned in my second letter. He possibly may have other reasons for his opinions, which he chooses to keep to himself, but surely such cannot serve as rules by which to regulate my conduct while I remain ignorant of them, nor can I imagine it to be my duty, or the expectation of Congress, that I should blindly fall into the sentiments of any man, especially when I think this backwardness to give proper support to our cause at the Courts of Europe, may be accounted for on other principles. That it does actually exist, I can now no longer doubt. However, Congress will make up their own judgment upon this point from the letters of the Minister himself, and from other facts, with which they are much better acquainted than I can be.
I confess, that had the proposition of the mediators been laid before me to form my opinion upon, unaccompanied with the strictures of the French Minister, I should have laid my finger upon three words only in it, viz. en même tems, and considered the others, to which he meant to draw my particular attention, by underscoring them, as merely colorable terms, and a specimen of that finesse, from which the politics of Europe can never be free. I should therefore have drawn from it a conclusion very different from that of the French Minister, viz.—"It is therefore clear, that their design is to avoid compromiting themselves by recognising the independence of the United States, till England herself shall have done it;" for if, as he would have me to understand, the mediators do in fact still consider the United States as British Colonies, and that neither the belligerent powers, or themselves, ought to interfere in settling the war between them and Great Britain, without being invited by both parties, how comes it to pass, that as mediators between the belligerent powers, meaning not to comprehend America under that predicament, they should go on to annex, in the nature of condition of their mediation, that "there shall be at the same time a treaty between Great Britain and the American Colonies, respecting the re-establishment of peace in America;" thereby prescribing to a sovereign State the time when it shall enter upon the settlement of a dispute, existing between the Sovereign of that State and a part of his subjects, in which they mean not to intermeddle; and, according to the French Ministers, even the manner of doing it. For, says he, "the mediating Courts intend thereby, that your deputies shall treat simply with the English Ministers, in the same manner as they have already treated in America with the Commissioners from Great Britain in the year 1778." I could have set him right in matter of fact here, but it would have answered no good purpose.
This measure, I am told, has been proposed "to conciliate opposing pretensions," and "that the result of their negotiations will make known to the other powers on what footing they ought to be regarded, and that their public character will be acknowledged without difficulty from the moment that the English interpose no opposition." If such were the designs of the mediators, why not leave Great Britain to compose her internal troubles in her own time, and in her own way, and proceed to the great business of composing those of the nations of Europe? How are we to account for the Court of London rejecting the mediation if they conceived the proposition in that very inoffensive light, which he supposes it to be meant, and if it was so clear from it, that the mediators would not interfere in our particular negotiation unless invited to do it, and were determined never to acknowledge the independence of the United States until Great Britain herself had done it, or at least till the moment in which she shall cease to oppose it? Could a more favorable occasion be presented to Great Britain for negotiation? My present opinion upon this matter is, that the mediators do in fact consider the United States, as an independent sovereign power; that upon that principle they wish to extinguish the flames of war in both countries at the same time; that they do not flatter themselves they can restore peace to Europe during the continuance of the war in America, or that the United States will treat with Britain upon any other ground than that of an independent power; that to bring about a general pacification, in a manner the least offensive to any of the belligerent powers of Europe, particularly Britain, they have framed their propositions in the terms in which it is conceived; and although they declare in it, that the other belligerent powers, or even themselves ought not to interfere in our particular negotiations, yet it seems to be their intention, that the negotiation between the European powers, should proceed but with equal pace with our particular one.
I cannot but think the mediators expected the Court of London would reject this first plan of mediation, on account of the proposition respecting America (as I am told by a public Minister here, who ought to be well informed upon the point, they certainly have done) although it is worded in a manner as little offensive to their feelings as the nature of things would admit of; and that having tried this measure, the mediators will next proceed to another, in which their sentiments in favor of the United States will be less ambiguous.