DUMAS.
TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
The Hague, December 25th, 1778.
Gentlemen,
Your friends here do all that they can to bring about future connexions between the two Republics. The phrase, that I have underlined in the Declaration,[33] expresses nothing else than the authentic information, which the city of Amsterdam has of the disposition by which a majority is influenced in the Republic. See in it then only the wish of the city, that your virtuous perseverance in a union, on which alone depends your sovereignty, may frustrate this influence. It can do nothing against you without unanimity; but, without this same unanimity, all the good will of the city can at the present time do nothing more for you, as to the conclusion of a treaty of amity and commerce, than project it, in order to have it ready when it shall be able to propose it with some appearance of success. A copy of the Memorial, presented on the 7th of December, by the French Minister to their High Mightinesses, was sent to me by himself, on the 8th, to be communicated to you.
They have sent me from Amsterdam, with the same intent, a copy of the protest of the city against the resolution adopted by the majority for refusing convoy to naval articles. This important paper is very long, (20 pages in folio.) Expecting that I may be able to send it to you, translated and copied, I will transcribe for you, Gentlemen, what a good Dutch citizen, to whom I lent it, thought of it. "It is scarce possible for me," said he, "to paint the vexation with which I have read the resolve adopted by the majority. A document at once puerile, jesuitical, and made unintelligible, as I think, from design, to conceal the palpaple contradictions and absurdities of which it is full. I can compare it to nothing better than to a serpent, which hides its ugly head under the tortuous folds of its horrible body. The protest, on the contrary, is the finest document of its kind, that I remember to have seen. As precise as it is luminous, it presents at once, and gathers, so to speak, into a single focus, all the reasons for the opposite sentiment, in a manner to strike all eyes which are not voluntarily closed to its light. But we live in the midst of a people, who do not hesitate to call white black, and black white, provided it favors the party of the Boreases of England and of our country." The States of Holland assembled yesterday. They have named two committees to deliberate, the one on the answer to be made to the Court of France, the other on the new complaints to which the English have just given cause. We shall not know the result till next week.
In the circumstances, Gentlemen, in which you see things, it will be necessary that I should be provided with a letter of credence from your honorable Congress, like, mutatis mutandis, that which I received from it under date from the 9th to the 12th of December, 1775, and of which I made use at the Court of France, in April, 1776; with this difference, that the other being unlimited and accommodated to existing circumstances, that which I now ask for should be limited to this Republic, and conformable to the present situation and dignity of the American confederation, to the end that I may be able to produce it to whomever it shall be proper, and to labor with all requisite credit and weight, in concert with your friends in this country, on the proposal of amity and commerce between the two Republics. Such a paper becomes every day more necessary; and I dare say, that it will be necessary to the United States that I should be provided with it as soon as possible, so as not to give it publicity, which everywhere, except in France and Spain, seems to have no good effect; but to continue, as I have done hitherto, to increase and strengthen your friends here, and to hinder your enemies from realising, at the expense of this Republic, the fable of the monkey who drew his chestnuts from the fire with the cat's paw. Malo esse quam videri ought to be the constant maxim of all those, who are called to serve so fine a cause as that of the American Union. It is certainly mine. It is this that dictates the precise answer, which I have yet to give to what you had the goodness to write concerning me, in the letter with which you honored me, under date of the 14th of May of this year, to wit; "We shall write particularly to the gentlemen at Paris, respecting the injuries you have received from our enemies, and shall instruct them to pay the strictest attention to our engagements made to you at the commencement of our correspondence."
These gentlemen, in sending me the letter, wrote me nothing on this business, and I have not drawn on them for more than I had agreed with Mr Deane, towards the end of the past year, to be necessary for me to live here in a style of mediocrity, and with much economy, namely, two hundred louis d'ors this year. I shall continue on this footing, drawing always a hundred louis d'ors every six months, till it please your honorable Congress to fix my stipend. In expectation that the situation of affairs will permit the United States to observe in respect to me, or in case of my death, in respect to my daughter, the wise magnanimity that befits sovereigns, I will serve them, with the same zeal as if they gave me double, and with more inward satisfaction than if any other Power should give me ten fold. I can assure you, Gentlemen, that from the beginning, I have done for the whole American people, as I would do for a friend in danger. For the rest, I am well satisfied and grateful for the obliging things you have written me on this subject, and I do not ask new assurances. It is sufficient for me, that you know my true sentiments, and that you will have the goodness to make them known to the honorable Congress.
I have the honor to be, &c.