FRANCIS DANA.
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
St Petersburg, August 17th, 1783.
Sir,
Before I received your letter and the resolution of Congress founded upon my letter of the 23d of September last, permitting my return to America, finding it impracticable to support myself upon my appointment for the time I expected to be detained in negotiating a treaty of commerce, I had written to Messrs Willink, and other bankers of the United States in Holland, to give me a credit here, for a sum not exceeding one thousand pounds sterling on account of the United States, engaging at the same time to be responsible for it, if Congress should refuse to allow it. Over and above this, I had applied to my bankers in this city to advance me six hundred pounds sterling, on my private credit, which I found it would be necessary for me to expend for such household furniture only, as is not included in what they call here a furnished house. Such a one I was just upon the point of engaging for six months, at the rate of sixteen hundred rubles a year, when your letter came to hand.
But as the object of negotiation above mentioned, is not thought by Congress to be worth pursuing at this time, I thought it would be most advisable for me to disengage myself from these extraordinary expenses, and to improve the convenient opportunity which now offers to take my passage from this port for Boston, without waiting for the conclusion of the definitive treaties of peace, merely to take an audience of her Imperial Majesty; especially as I doubted whether Congress would approve of my incurring them, after I had received their permission to return, and found that they had no particular object of negotiation in view at this Court. Besides, I saw if I had an audience of her Majesty, it would not do for me to leave the Court abruptly, or before the next spring, and that in consequence of it, I should not be able to arrive in America till nearly the expiration of another year. I therefore wrote to the Vice Chancellor, as you will find by my last, to inform him of my intention to return to America. Further to explain the motive of Congress, as well as my own respecting this measure, I wrote him again on the 14th instant as follows.
TO COUNT OSTERMANN.
"Sir,
"Lest the motive of the Congress of the United States, in granting me permission to return to America, as mentioned in the letter I did myself the honor to write to your Excellency on the 8th instant, might be misapprehended, I beg leave to inform you, that finding my health had suffered greatly since coming into this climate and my private affairs urging it upon me at the same time, I wrote to the Congress in September last, acquainting them with my desire to return to America. It was in consequence of this alone, they have been pleased to grant me that liberty.
"Those causes, but especially my ill state of health, operating with greater force at this day, oblige me to improve the earliest occasion to return to America, and one now offering from this port, I have proposed to take the benefit of it. But independent of such considerations, which are merely personal, as I have not yet been acknowledged in my public character, it appears improper for me after having received the abovementioned act of Congress, to ask an audience of her Imperial Majesty for the purpose of assuming it, and when too, if I should do it, I must immediately after ask an audience of leave. These reasons I hope, will excuse my retiring in a private character, as I have hitherto remained here. Highly sensible of the honor I should derive from being the first Minister from the United States of America at this Imperial Court, it is with infinite regret, I feel myself under the necessity of departing without having assumed that character. If your Excellency should judge it expedient, I will do myself the honor to wait upon you, in order to give you further explanations upon this subject verbally, than I have done in writing.