him by his friends. I have been also indulging a hope, that your return for such periods as would be most interesting, and would least interfere with the exercise of your profession, might be reconciled to your views. Unless temperate and experienced members come in for the ensuing year, I foresee that the exclusions required by the Confederation will make way for a change in the Federal Councils, not favorable to those Catholic arrangements on which the harmony and stability of the Union must greatly depend.

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Philadelphia, June 10, 1783.

DEAR SIR,

Mr. Jones will have informed you that the mission of Payne to Rhode Island by Congress was a fiction of malice. If the trip was not a spontaneous measure of his own, I am a stranger to its origin.

I am told by one of the Judges of Appeal, that no case has yet required from them a construction of the epochs which are to limit captures. The third of March was generally applied at first to the American seas, but that opinion has rather lost ground. In New York, it is said that the third of April is adhered to. As the like phraseology is said to have been used in former treaties, the true construction might be found, I should suppose, in Admiralty precedents.

We have received the instruction relative to commercial treaties. The principle on which it is

But

founded corresponds precisely with my idea. I know not how far the giving an opportunity to the States of exercising their judgments on proposed treaties will correspond in all cases with the doctrine of the Confederation, which provides for secrecy in some such cases. The deviation, however, if there be any, is trivial, and, not being an intended one, can have no ill consequences. No progress has been made towards a treaty with Great Britain, owing partly to a desire of hearing further from Europe, and partly to the paucity of States represented in Congress. It would seem that the plan of regulating the trade with America by a Parliamentary act has been exchanged, by the present Ministry, for an intended treaty for that purpose. Mr. Laurens was asked by Mr. Fox, whether the American Ministers had powers for a commercial treaty. His answer was, that he believed so; that a revocation of Mr. Adams's power had appeared some time ago in print, but he considered the publication as spurious. From this it would seem, that this act of Congress had never been communicated by the latter to his colleagues. He lately complained of the revocation in a very singular letter to Congress. I consider it as a very fortunate circumstance, that this business is still within our control, especially as the policy of authorizing conditional treaties only in Europe is so fully espoused by Virginia."

Mr. Livingston has taken his final leave of the Department of Foreign Affairs. No nomination of a successor has yet been made, though the time assigned for the election has passed, nor does the conversation centre on any individual. I can form

no conjecture on whom the choice will ultimately

fall.

The offers of New York and Maryland of a seat for Congress are postponed till October next, in order to give time for other offers, and for knowing the sense of the States on the subject. Copies of those acts are to be sent to the Executives of each State.

Congress have resumed, at length, the cession of Virginia. The old obnoxious report was committed, and a new report has been made, which, I think, a fit basis for a compromise. A copy of it is enclosed for the Governor. I have also transcribed it in my letter to Mr. Jones. As it tacitly excludes the pretensions of the companies, I fear obstacles may arise in Congress from that quarter. Clark, from New Jersey, informed Congress, that the Delegates from that State, being fettered by instructions, must communicate the plan to their constituents. If no other causes of delay should arise, the thinness of Congress I am at some at present will prove a material one. loss for the policy of the companies in opposing a compromise with Virginia. They can never hope for a specific restitution of their claims; they can never even hope for a cession of the country between the Alleghany and the Ohio by Virginia; as little can they hope for an extension of a jurisdiction of Congress over it by force. I should suppose, therefore, that it would be their truest interest to promote a general cession of the vacant country to Congress; and in case the titles of which they have been stripped, should be deemed reasonable, and Congress should be disposed to make any equitable

compensation, Virginia would be no more interested in opposing it than other States.

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Philadelphia, June 10, 1753.

DEAR SIR,

Congress have received two letters from Mr. Laurens, dated London, one on the fifteenth of March, and the other the fifth of April. In the former he persists in the jealousy, expressed in his letter of the 24th of December, of the British Councils; he says that Shelburne had boasted of his success in gaining the provisional treaty without the concurrence of France, and of the good effects he expected to draw from that advantage. Mr. Laurens's remark was, that admitting the fact, which he did not, although it might disgrace and even prove fatal to the American Ministers, it could have no such effects on the United States. His second letter expresses more confidence in the Duke of Portland and Mr. Fox. These Ministers have withdrawn the subject of commerce with the United States from Parlia ment, and mean to open negotiations for a treaty with their Ministers in Europe. Mr. Fox asked Mr. Laurens, whether these had powers for that purpose. His answer was, that he believed so; that he had seen a revocation of Mr. Adams's commission noticed in the gazettes, but that he considered the paragraph as spurious. From this it would seem, that Mr. Adams had never communicated this diminution of his

powers to his colleagues. These letters leave us

in the suspense they found us as to the definitive treaty. Mr. Laurens thinks that no such event could have been relied on under Shelburne's administration. He was, on the fifth of April, setting out for Paris with Mr. David Hartley, successor to Mr. Oswald, from whence he should proceed to America, unless a definitive treaty was near being concluded. Notwithstanding the daily arrivals from every quarter, we get not a line on the subject from our Ministers at Versailles.

Mr. Dumas has enclosed to Congress sundry papers, from which it appears that the Dutch indulge a violent animosity against the French Court for abandoning their interests, and the liberty of navigation, by a premature concluding of the preliminaries. Complaints of this kind are made through Dumas to Mr. Adams, with inquiries whether the American Ministers had powers to concert engagements with the United Provinces, His Most Christian Majesty, and His Catholic Majesty, for maintaining the rights asserted by the neutral Confederation; or, if the two last decline, with the United Provinces alone. The answer of Mr. Adams is not included, but references to it import that it was satisfactory, and that negotiations were to be opened accordingly. It is certain, notwithstanding, that no powers equal to such a transaction were ever given generally to the Ministers; and that, as far as they were given, they were superseded by the commission to Mr. Dana. This correspondence commenced in January, and is brought down to late in March; and yet no intimation whatever concerning it has been received from the Ministers themselves.

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