The Hague, October 29th, 1779.
High and Mighty Lords,
In thanking your High Mightinesses for the orders your humanity has dictated in relation to the wounded, who were on board two vessels of the King, the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, I only discharge the orders of his Majesty in renewing the most strong and urgent demand for the seizure and restitution of said vessels, as well as for the enlargement of their crews, who have been seized by the pirate Paul Jones, a Scotchman, a rebellious subject and state criminal.
The sentiments of equity and justice of your High Mightinesses leave no room to doubt, that in taking into a more mature deliberation all the circumstances of this affair, you will recognize readily the justice of a demand, founded as well on the most solemn treaties, which have subsisted more than a century between the Crown of Great Britain and the United Provinces, as on the principles of the law of nations, and the custom of friendly and allied States.
The stipulations of the treaty of Breda, of the 31st of July, 1667, confirmed and renewed expressly in that of 1716, and in all the subsequent ones, are too clear and incontestible in this respect not to be felt in all their force.
The King considered it derogatory to his dignity, as well as to that of your High Mightinesses, to expose the particulars of a case so notorious as that in question, or to cite to the ancient friends and allies of his Crown analogous examples of other Princes and States.
I shall confine myself to the remark, that the placard of your High Mightinesses, in prescribing to the captains of foreign ships of war to show their letters of marque or commissions, authorise you according to the general custom of Admiralties to treat as pirates those, whose letters are found to be illegal for not being issued by a sovereign power.
The character of Paul Jones, and all the circumstances of the affair, cannot by their notoriety be unknown to your High Mightinesses. Europe has her eyes fixed on your resolution. Your High Mightinesses know too well the value of good faith, not to give an example of it on this important occasion. The least deviation from a rule so sacred, in weakening friendship among neighbors, produces often unfortunate consequences.
The King has always made it his pride to cultivate the friendship of your High Mightinesses. His Majesty persists steadfastly in the same sentiments; but the English nation does not think itself bound, by any of its proceedings, to have its citizens detained prisoners in a port of the Republic by an outlaw, a subject of the same country, and who enjoys the liberty of which they are deprived.
It is for all these reasons, and many others equally solid, which cannot escape the great penetration and sagacity of your High Mightinesses, that the undersigned hopes to receive a ready and favorable answer to the above, conformable to the just expectation of the King, his master, and of the British nation.