I have not spoken in this letter of our treaty of amity and commerce with this Republic, signed finally by both parties the 8th of this month, because Mr Adams will give you this detail better than I can. I shall content myself with saying, that I have every reason to be persuaded that he is satisfied with the zeal, with which I have fulfilled the tasks which he has required of me, in the operations which have preceded this signature, and pray God that the United States may gather from it the most abundant fruits.
October 22d. I am anxious to see an answer to the extract I sent to your Excellency, agreeably to the wish and permission of Mr Adams, of a certain letter which he wrote me. For so long as I am not openly recognised and suitably sustained by Congress, my precarious condition here is cruel, in the midst of the Anglomanes, who wish to see me perish ignobly, and in the bosom of a family whose complaints and reproaches I fear more than death. Mr Laurens, in his hasty passage through this country, was perfectly sensible of it. He knows that I serve the United States constantly, without respect of persons. "You have been slighted," are his own words; and when I testified to him my regrets for his departure from Europe, he had the goodness to add, that these regrets were contrary to my interest. Permit me, Sir, to commend them to you, and if Mr Laurens has returned to you safely, as I hope, on the arrival of this, will you express to him the sentiments of the most affectionate respect which I retain for him, as well as for all the great men in America, who have served under the sublime principles, which have animated me as well as them; and in which I, as well, as they, will live and die.
I am, with great respect, &c.
DUMAS.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] The 12th of September, the Prince on his return from the Texel, reported positively to their High Mightinesses, that all was there ready, that the vessels were in a condition for sea and for action, and waited only for his orders.
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
The Hague, November 15th, 1782.
Sir,
Yesterday morning, after a conference with his Excellency the Duc de la Vauguyon, I went in a post chaise to Rotterdam and Dort, in order to advise our friends in these two cities of some changes about to be made in the instructions of their Ministers Plenipotentiary at Paris, to deprive the English Minister of all pretext for conferring with those of the other belligerent powers without them. I succeeded to the satisfaction of his Excellency, and our friends were duly informed and disposed, when they received this morning, while I was returning, letters on this subject from the Grand Pensionary. My journey has gained the time which would have been lost, if they had, on re-assembling here taken the thing ad referendum.