The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume V Part 41

Hague, March 14th, 1781.

Sir,

I have received the letter, which you did me the honor to write to me, as also the copy of the resolution of Congress of the United States of North America, thereto annexed. You announce to me, that you have made an official communication thereof to the President of the a.s.sembly of the States-General, as also to the Envoys of the Courts of Petersburg, Stockholm, and Copenhagen, and you request me to support this step with my good offices. I am persuaded, Sir, that you clearly perceive the impossibility of my seconding this measure, without the express order of the King, whatever may be my personal zeal for the true interests of North America.

Receive, Sir, the very sincere a.s.surance of the sentiments of the most distinguished respect with which I have the honor to be, &c.

THE DUC DE LA VAUGUYON.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Leyden, March 18th, 1781.

Sir,

At length, notwithstanding the mediation of the Empress of Russia, the States-General have published the following Manifesto. It is ent.i.tled, the Counter Manifesto of the States-General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries.

COUNTER MANIFESTO.

"If ever the annals of the world have furnished an example of a free and independent State, hostilely attacked in the manner the most unjust, and without the least appearance of justice or equity, by a neighboring power, long in alliance, and strictly connected by ties founded upon common interests, it is, without contradiction, the Republic of the United Provinces of the Low Countries, which finds itself in this case, in relation to his Majesty, the King of Great Britain, and his Ministry.

"From the commencement of the troubles arisen between that Kingdom and its Colonies in America, their High Mightinesses, by no means obliged to take the smallest part in them, had formed the firm and invariable design to adopt and to follow in relation to these troubles, the system of the most perfect and the most exact neutrality; and when the same troubles had afterwards enkindled a war, which extended itself to more than one power, and spread itself to more than one part of the world, their High Mightinesses have constantly observed and maintained the same system, while at the same time they have not neglected to give, on more than one occasion, and relative to the most essential objects, the most convincing proofs of their sincere disposition to satisfy the desires of his Majesty, as far as they could advance, without wounding the rules of impartiality, and without compromising the rights of their sovereignty. It was in these views and to this end, that their High Mightinesses at first, and at the first requisition of his Britannic Majesty, published prohibitions the most express against the exportation of military stores to the Colonies of his Majesty in America, and against all fraudulent commerce with the same Colonies; and to the end, that those prohibitions should be executed the more effectually, their High Mightinesses did not hesitate, moreover, to take measures which did not fail to restrain and confine very greatly, the navigation and the commerce of their own subjects with the Colonies of the State in the West Indies.

"It was, moreover, in the same views, and to the same end, that their High Mightinesses sent orders the most precise to all the Governors and Commanders of their Colonies and of their establishments, as well as to all the officers, commanders of their vessels of wars, to take special care to do nothing towards the flag of the American Congress, from whence they might lawfully infer or deduce an acknowledgment of the independence of the said Colonies. And it was above all in these views and to this end, that their High Mightinesses having received a memorial, which was presented to them by the Amba.s.sador of England, containing complaints the most spirited against the Governor of St Eustatia, condescended to deliberate concerning this memorial, although conceived in terms little accommodated to those respects, which sovereign powers reciprocally owe to each other.

"This deliberation was soon followed by the recall of the said Governor, whom their High Mightinesses ordered to render an account of his conduct, and whom they did not permit to return to his residence until after he had exculpated himself of all the accusations brought against him by a justification of himself in detail, a copy of which was transmitted without delay to the Ministry of his Britannic Majesty. It was by means of these measures, that their High Mightinesses, having always had it at heart to avoid giving the smallest cause of dissatisfaction to his Britannic Majesty, have constantly endeavored to entertain and to cultivate his friends.h.i.+p and good understanding. But the conduct of his Britannic Majesty towards the Republic has been diametrically opposite.

"The troubles between the Courts of London and Versailles had scarcely broken out, when we saw the ports of England filled with Dutch s.h.i.+ps unjustly taken and detained. These vessels navigated under the faith of treaties, and were not loaded with other merchandises than with those which the express tenor of treaties declared free and lawful. We saw those free cargoes forced to submit to the law of an arbitrary and despotic authority. The Cabinet of St James knowing no other rules than a pretended right of temporary conveniency, thought proper to appropriate those cargoes to the Crown by a forced purchase, and to employ them to the profit of the royal navy. The representations the most energetic, and the most serious on the part of their High Mightinesses against such proceedings were to no purpose, and it was in vain that we demanded in the strongest manner the treaty of commerce, which subsisted between England and the Republic; by this treaty the rights and liberties of the neutral flag were clearly defined and stated. The subjects of Great Britain have enjoyed the full advantage of this treaty in the first and the only case, in which it pleased the Court of London to remain neuter, while the Republic was at war; at present in the reciprocal case, this Court cannot without the greatest injustice refuse the enjoyment of the same advantages to the Republic; and as little as his Britannic Majesty had a right to take away the advantageous effects of this treaty from their High Mightinesses, as little foundation had he to pretend to turn them from a neutrality, which they had embraced, and to force them to plunge themselves into a war, the causes of which had an immediate relation to rights and to possessions of his Britannic Majesty, originating without the limits of defensive treaties.

"And, nevertheless, it was this treaty, which his Majesty, from the commencement of the troubles with the Crown of France, made no scruple to infringe and violate. The contraventions and infractions of this treaty on the part of Great Britain, and the arbitrary decisions of the courts of justice of that kingdom, directly contrary to the express sanction of this same treaty, multiplied from day to day; the merchant vessels of the Republic became the innocent victims of exactions and acc.u.mulated violences of the English men-of-war and privateers. Not content with this, even the flag of the State was not spared, but openly insulted and outraged by the hostile attack of the convoy under the command of the Rear Admiral, the Count de Byland. The strongest representations on the part of the State to his Britannic Majesty were useless. The vessels taken from this convoy were declared lawful prizes; and this insult committed to the flag of the Republic was soon followed by the open violation of its neutral territory, both in Europe and in America. We shall content ourselves to cite two examples of it. At the Island of St Martins, the vessels of his Britannic Majesty attacked and took by force several vessels, which were in the Road, under the cannon of the fortress, where, according to the inviolable law of nations, these vessels ought to have found a safe asylum. The insolences committed by an English armed vessel upon the coast of the Republic, near the Island of Goedereede, furnish a second example of these violences; these insolences were pushed to such a degree, that several inhabitants of the Island, who were upon the sh.o.r.e, where they ought to have thought themselves sheltered from all insult, were exposed by the fire of this vessel to the most imminent danger, which they could not avoid but by retiring into the interior part of the Island. Unheard of proceedings, for which the Republic, notwithstanding the strongest and best founded representations, has not been able to obtain the smallest satisfaction.

"While affairs were thus in a situation, which left to their High Mightinesses no other alternative, but to see the navigation and the commerce of their subjects, upon which depend the prosperity or the ruin of the Republic, wholly annihilated, or to come to violent measures against their ancient friend and ally, the magnanimous heart of her Majesty, the Empress of Russia, engaged her to invite the Republic with equal affection and humanity, to take measures the most just, and entirely conformable to the treaties which subsist between them and the other powers, to the end to defend and to maintain, conjointly with her Imperial Majesty and the other powers of the north, the privileges and the immunities, which the law of nations and the most solemn treaties a.s.sure to the neutral flag. This invitation could not but be infinitely agreeable to their High Mightinesses, considering that it offered them a means of establis.h.i.+ng the protection of the commerce of their subjects upon the most solid foundation, and opened a way to place their independence in safety from all infraction, without derogating in the least from the alliances contracted, both with his Britannic Majesty and with the other belligerent powers.

"But it is this same means, which the Court of London has endeavored to take away from the Republic, by proceeding with precipitation to extremities the most outrageous, by the recall of her Amba.s.sador, by the publication of a Manifesto containing pretended grievances, and by granting letters of marque and of pretended reprisals against the State, its subjects, and their goods; by which, this Court has but too plainly discovered her designs long since formed, of laying aside the essential interests which united the two nations, and of breaking the ties of ancient friends.h.i.+p, by attacking this State by a war the most unjust.

"It will not be necessary to refute at length the reasons and pretended griefs alleged in the Manifesto, to convince every impartial man of their insolidity. It is sufficient to observe, in a few words, relative to the offer made by his Britannic Majesty, to open friendly conferences, that it was the abovementioned Treaty of Marine, which alone could make the object of those conferences; that the dispositions of this treaty, conceived in the most expressive terms, could not be liable to any doubt nor equivocation, that this treaty gives neutral powers the right of transporting freely in the ports of the belligerent powers all sorts of naval stores; that the Republic proposing to itself no other end, and desiring of his Britannic Majesty no other thing, than the quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the rights stipulated by this treaty, a point so evidently clear, and so incontestably just could not become the object of a negotiation, or of a new convention derogatory to this treaty, so that their High Mightinesses could not persuade themselves nor show themselves disposed to renounce, voluntarily, rights justly acquired, and to desist from these rights from regard to the Court of England; a renunciation, which, being advantageous to one of the belligerent powers, would have been little compatible with the principles of the neutrality, and by which their High Mightinesses would have exposed, on the other hand, the safety of the State to dangers, which they were obliged carefully to avoid; a renunciation, moreover, which would have caused to commerce and navigation, the princ.i.p.al support of the Republic, and source of her prosperity, an irreparable prejudice; since the different branches of commerce, strictly connected with each other, form a whole, whereof it is impossible to cut off so princ.i.p.al a part, without necessarily causing the destruction and ruin of the whole body; not to mention, that at the same time that their High Mightinesses made, with reason, a difficulty to accept the proposed conferences, they have not a little modified and tempered the actual exercise of their right by a provisional resolution.

"And as to what relates to the succors demanded, their High Mightinesses cannot dissemble, that they have never been able to conceive how his Britannic Majesty has thought, that he could insist, with the least appearance of justice or of equity, upon the succors stipulated by the treaties, at a time when he had already beforehand withdrawn himself from the obligation, which those treaties imposed upon him towards the Republic. Their High Mightinesses have not been less surprised to see, that while the troubles in America, and their direct consequences could not concern the Republic in virtue of any treaty, and that the succor had not been demanded, until after the Crown of Spain had augmented the number of belligerent powers, his Britannic Majesty has, nevertheless, taken the occasion of this event to insist upon his demand with so much earnestness, and such an ardor, as if his Majesty thought himself to have a right to pretend and to maintain, that a war, once enkindled between him and any other power, was alone sufficient to oblige the State to grant forthwith, and without any anterior examination, the succors stipulated.

"The Republic, it is true, had obliged itself by the treaties to a.s.sist Great Britain at all times, when this kingdom should find itself attacked, or threatened with an unjust war; and what is more, the Republic ought in this case, according to the same treaties, to declare war against the aggressor; but their High Mightinesses never pretended to abdicate the right, which flows necessarily from the nature of every offensive alliance, and which cannot be contested to allied powers, to examine in the first place, and before the granting of succors, or taking part in the war, the principle of the dissensions which have arisen, and the nature of the difference, which has given occasion to it, as well as also to examine and weigh thoroughly the reasons and the motives, which may establish the _casus foederis_, and which ought to serve as a basis of the justice and the lawfulness of the war, on the part of that one of the confederated powers, who demands the succor. And there exists no treaty, by which their High Mightinesses have renounced the independence of the State, and sacrificed their interests to those of Great Britain, to such a degree, as to deprive themselves of the right of examination, so necessary and so indispensable, by engaging themselves to measures, by which they may be considered as obliged in duty to submit to the good pleasure of the Court of England, by granting the succors demanded, even where this Court, engaged in a quarrel with another power, judges proper to prefer the way of arms to that of a reasonable satisfaction upon just complaints.

"It was not then by a spirit of party, or by the device of a predominant cabal, but after a mature deliberation, and in a sincere desire to maintain the most precious interests of the Republic, that the States of the respective Provinces have all unanimously testified, that they were of opinion, that the succor demanded ought to be refused in a manner the most polite; and their High Mightinesses would not have failed to have transmitted to his Britannic Majesty conformable to these resolutions, an answer to the repeated demands of succors, if they had not been prevented by the violent and unheard of attack of the flag of the State under the command of Rear Admiral Byland, by the refusal to give satisfaction upon a point so grave, and by the declaration not less strange than unjust, which his Majesty thought fit to make relative to the suspension of the treaties, which subsisted between him and the Republic. Also many events, which by requiring deliberations of quite another nature, put an end to those, which had taken place on the subject of the said requisition.

"It is in vain, and contrary to all truth, that they have endeavored to multiply the number of grievances, by alleging the suppression of the duties of exportation as a measure tending to facilitate the transportation of naval stores to France; for besides, that this suppression forms an object, which regards the interior direction of commerce, to which all the sovereigns have an incontestible right, and whereof they are not obliged to give an account to any body, this point has, it is true, been taken into consideration, but has never been concluded; so that these rights are still received upon the ancient footing; and that which is advanced in this regard in the manifesto, is found dest.i.tute of all foundation, although we cannot refrain from saying, that the conduct of his Britannic Majesty towards the Republic, furnished but too many motives to justify a similar measure on the part of their High Mightinesses.

"The discontent of his Britannic Majesty, on the subject of what pa.s.sed with the American, Paul Jones, is also quite as ill grounded.

Already for several years, their High Mightinesses had resolved, and published everywhere, precise orders concerning the admission of privateers and armed vessels of foreign nations with their prizes, in the ports of their domination, orders, which to that time had been observed and executed without the least exception. In the case in question, their High Mightinesses could not depart from those orders, in regard to an armed vessel, who, furnished with a commission of the American Congress, was found in the Road of the Texel, combined with frigates of war of a sovereign power, without erecting themselves into judges, and p.r.o.nouncing a decision upon matters, in which their High Mightinesses were in nowise obliged to take any part, and in which it did not appear to them convenient to the interests of the Republic to meddle in any manner. Their High Mightinesses then thought fit not to depart from the orders given so long ago, but they resolved to give the most express prohibition to hinder the said armed vessel from providing herself with warlike stores, and enjoined upon her to quit the Road as soon as possible, without remaining there longer than the time absolutely necessary to repair the damages suffered at sea, with the formal denunciation, that in case of a longer delay we should be obliged to compel his departure, to which end the officer of the State, commanding at the said Road, took care to make the requisite dispositions, whereof this armed vessel had scarcely the time to prevent the effects.

"In regard to what has pa.s.sed in the other parts of the world, the informations which their High Mightinesses have received from time to time from the East Indies, are directly opposite to those, which appear to have come under the eyes of his Britannic Majesty. The repeated complaints, which the directors of the East India Company have addressed to their High Mightinesses, and which the love of peace has made them stifle in their bosoms, are incontestible proofs of it.

And the measures taken with regard to the West Indies, enumerated heretofore, ought to serve in all times as an irrefragable proof of the sincerity, the zeal, and the attention with which their High Mightinesses have taken it to heart, to maintain in those countries the most exact and the most strict neutrality; and their High Mightinesses have never been able to discover the smallest legal proof of any infraction of their orders in this respect.

"As to what concerns the project of an eventual treaty with North America, conceived by a member of the government of the Province of Holland, without any public authority, and the memorials presented upon this subject by Sir Joseph Yorke, the affair happened in the following manner. As soon as the Amba.s.sador had presented the memorial of the 10th of November of the last year, their High Mightinesses, without stopping at expressions little suitable among sovereigns, with which this memorial was filled, did not delay to commence a deliberation the most serious upon this subject, and it was by their resolution of the 27th of the same month, that they did not hesitate to _disavow_ and to _disapprove_ publicly all which had been done in this respect; after which, they had all reason to expect that his Britannic Majesty would have acquiesced in this declaration, since he could not be ignorant that their High Mightinesses exercise no jurisdiction in the respective Provinces, and that it was to the States of the Province of Holland to whom, as clothed like the States of the other Provinces, with a sovereign and exclusive authority over their subjects, ought to be remitted an affair relatively to which their High Mightinesses had no reason to doubt, that the States of the said Province would act according to the exigence of the case, and conformably to the laws of the State and the rules of equity.

"The earnestness with which Sir Joseph Yorke insisted, by a second memorial, upon the article of the punishment, cannot therefore but appear very strange to their High Mightinesses, and their surprise increased still more when three days afterwards, this Amba.s.sador declared, verbally, to the President of their High Mightinesses, that if he did not receive that day an answer entirely satisfactory to his memorial, he should be obliged to inform his Court of it by an express; their High Mightinesses, informed of this declaration, penetrated the importance of it, as manifesting visibly the measure already resolved in the Council of the King; and although the established customs admit not of deliberations upon verbal declarations of foreign Ministers, they judged it nevertheless proper to depart from them on this occasion, and to order their Secretary to wait on Sir Joseph Yorke, and give him to understand that his memorial had been taken _ad referendum_ by the Deputies of the respective Provinces conformably to received usages, and to the const.i.tution of the government; adding, what appears to have been omitted with design in the manifesto, that they would endeavor to complete an answer to his memorial as soon as possible, and as soon as the const.i.tution of the government would permit. Accordingly, a few days after, the Deputies of Holland notified to the a.s.sembly of their High Mightinesses, that the States of their Province had unanimously resolved to require the advice of their Court of Justice, on the subject of demand of punishment, charging the said Court to give their opinion the soonest possible, laying aside all other affairs. Their High Mightinesses did not fail to transmit forthwith this resolution to Sir Joseph Yorke; but what was their surprise and their astonishment, when they learned that this Amba.s.sador, after having reviewed his instructions, had addressed a billet to the Secretary, by which, in accusing this resolution with being evasive, he refused to transmit it to his Court; which obliged their High Mightinesses to send the said resolution to the Count de Welderen, their Minister at London, with orders to present it as soon as possible to the Ministry of his Britannic Majesty; but the refusal of this Ministry threw an obstacle in the way of the execution of these orders.

"After this explanation of all the circ.u.mstances of this affair, the impartial public will be in a condition to set a just value upon the princ.i.p.al motive, or rather pretext which his Britannic Majesty has used to let loose the reins of his designs against the Republic. The affair reduces itself to this. His Majesty was informed of a negotiation which should have taken place in the year 1778, between a member of the government of one of the Provinces and a representative of the American Congress, which negotiation would have had for its object to project a treaty of commerce, to be concluded between the Republic and the said Colonies, _casu quo_, viz. in case the independence of these Colonies should have been acknowledged by the Crown of England; this negotiation, although conditional, and annexed to a condition, which depended upon an act to be antecedently performed by his Majesty himself; this negotiation, which without this act, or this anterior declaration, could not produce the smallest effect, was taken in so ill a part by his Majesty, and appeared to excite his discontent in such a degree, that he thought fit to require of the State a disavowal and a public disapprobation, as well as a complete punishment and satisfaction. It was forthwith, and without the least delay, that their High Mightinesses granted the first part of the requisition, but the punishment demanded was not in their power, and they could not agree to it, without flying in the face of the fundamental const.i.tution of the State. The States of the Province of Holland were the only tribunal to which it belonged to take legal cognizance, and to provide for the case by the ordinary and regular ways.

"This Sovereign, constantly attached to the maxims, which obliged it to respect the authority of the laws, and fully convinced that the maintenance of the department of justice in all the integrity and impartiality which are inseparable from it, ought to form one of the firmest supports of the supreme Power; this Sovereign, constrained by everything which is most sacred to defend, and to protect the rights and the privileges of its subjects, could not forget itself to such a degree as to subscribe to the will of his Britannic Majesty, by giving a blow to these rights and privileges, and by overleaping the bounds prescribed by the fundamental laws of the government. These laws required the intervention of the judiciary department, and this was accordingly the means which the said States resolved to employ, by requiring upon this object the advice of the Court of Justice established in their Province. It is by following this course that they have displayed before the eyes of his Britannic Majesty, of the English nation, and of all Europe, the unalterable principles of justice and equity, which characterise the Batavian Const.i.tution, and which in a part so important of the public administration as is that which regards the exercise of the judiciary power, ought forever to serve as a buckler and a rampart against everything which could hurt the safety and the independence of a free nation; it was also by this means, and by following this course, that very far from shutting the road of justice, or evading the demand of punishment, they have on the contrary, left a free course to the way of regular proceeding, and conformable to the const.i.tutional principles of the Republic; and it is finally by the same means, that by taking away from the Court of London all pretence of being able to complain of a denial of justice, they have prevented even to the smallest shadow or appearance of reason, which could authorise this Court to use reprisals to which, nevertheless, it has made no scruple to recur in a manner equally odious and unjust.

"But while the State took measures so just and so proper to remove all subject of complaint, the measure which was the epoch of the commencement of the rupture had already been resolved and concluded in the Council of the King. This Council had resolved to try all sorts of means to traverse and hinder, if it had been possible, the accession of the Republic to the convention of the Powers of the North, and the event has clearly demonstrated, that it is in hatred and resentment of this convention that the said Court has suffered itself to be drawn into the part, which it has been pleased to take against the Republic.

For these causes, and since that after the repeated outrages and immense losses, which the subjects of the Republic must have sustained on the part of his Majesty, the King of Great Britain, their High Mightinesses find themselves moreover provoked and attacked by his said Majesty, and forced to employ the means which they have in hand, to defend and avenge the precious rights of their liberty and independence, they a.s.sure themselves with the firmest confidence, that the G.o.d of armies, the G.o.d of their fathers, who by the visible direction of his Providence sustained and delivered their Republic in the midst of the greatest dangers, will bless the means, which they have resolved to put in operation for their lawful defence, in crowning the justice of their arms, by the succors always triumphant of his Almighty protection, while that their High Mightinesses will desire with ardor the moment, when they shall see their neighbor and their ally, now their enemy, brought back to moderate and equitable sentiments; and at this epoch, their High Mightinesses will seize with earnestness all events, which, compatible with the honor and independence of a free State, may tend to reconcile them with their ancient friend and ally.

"Thus done and resolved at the a.s.sembly of their High Mightinesses, the Lords the States-General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries, at the Hague, the 12th of March, 1781."

It is remarkable, that their High Mightinesses, after so many delays, have chosen for the publication of this Manifesto, a time when the mediation of the Empress is depending. This mediation appears in a memorial, presented the 1st of March to the States-General, in these words.

"High and Mighty Lords.--As soon as her Majesty, the Empress, was informed of the sudden departure from the Hague of the Amba.s.sador of his Britannic Majesty to your High Mightinesses, guided by the sentiments of friends.h.i.+p and benevolence, which she professes towards the two powers, she did not wait for further explanations, concerning the consequences, which might be produced by a procedure so alarming for their reciprocal tranquillity and well-being, to make by her Minister at the Court of London representations the most pressing, to the end to divert it, if it were possible, from coming to violent measures, and to induce it rather to prefer those of softness and conciliation, offering herself to co-operate in everything which might depend upon her. Although her Majesty has not yet had the time to receive the answer of the Court of London, she has, nevertheless, reason to presume, that her insinuations there will be received with pleasure.

In this confidence, the Empress does not hesitate to give a new proof of her salutary intentions in favor of the reunion of two States, for whom she has an equal affection, and whom she has seen for so long a time live together in an intelligence the most perfect, and the most natural to their respective interests, by proposing to them formally her good offices and her mediation, to interrupt and put an entire end to the discord and the war, which has broken out between them. While M. Simolin, the Minister of the Empress at the Court of London, acquits himself of the orders, which she has given him concerning this object, the undersigned has the honor to fulfil the same task, on his part, towards your High Mightinesses, and to a.s.sure you of the zeal and earnestness with which he should desire to labor at the precious work of the re-establishment of the repose and the tranquillity of your State. The disinterestedness, the impartiality, and the views of general beneficence, which have instamped their seal upon all the actions of her Imperial Majesty, preside equally in this. The wisdom and the prudence of your High Mightinesses will know how to acknowledge in her these august characters, and will dictate the answer, which the subscriber will have to transmit to her, concerning the execution of his orders.

"The Hague, March 1st, 1781.

THE PRINCE DE GALLITZIN."

The offer of mediation was accepted by their High Mightinesses with grat.i.tude.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JOHN ADAMS.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Leyden, March 19th, 1781.

Sir,

I have received your Excellency's letter of the 1st of January, with the commission and instructions enclosed.[14] I am very sensible of this fresh instance of the confidence of Congress, and shall do everything in my power to discharge the duties of this new trust; but I am obliged to say, that no commission that ever was given, required more patience, fort.i.tude, and circ.u.mspection than this, virtues which I much fear have not fallen in sufficient quant.i.ties to my share.

[14] Appointing him Minister Plenipotentiary to the States-General of Holland and the Prince of Orange. See the Commission, Instructions, and Letters of Credence, in the _Secret Journals of Congress_. Vol.

II. pp. 376, 377, 391.

I have experienced since my residence in this Republic, a great change in the external behavior of several persons of rank, who upon my first arrival received me with distinction, but from the moment of the publication of the papers taken with Mr Laurens, have been afraid to see me. The nation has indeed been in a violent fermentation and crisis. It is divided in sentiments. There are Stadtholderians and Republicans; there are proprietors in English funds, and persons immediately engaged in commerce; there are enthusiasts for peace and alliance with England; and there are advocates for an alliance with France, Spain, and America; and there is a third sort who are for adhering in all things to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark; some are for acknowledging American independence, and entering into treaties of commerce and alliance with her; others start at the idea with horror, as an everlasting impediment to a return to the friends.h.i.+p and alliance with England; some will not augment the navy without increasing the army; others will let the navy be neglected rather than augment the army.

In this perfect chaos of sentiments and systems, principles and interests, it is no wonder there is languor, a weakness and irresolution, that is vastly dangerous in the present circ.u.mstances of affairs. The danger lies not more in the hostile designs and exertions of the English, than in the prospect of seditions and commotions among the people, which are every day dreaded and expected. If it were not for a standing army, and troops posted about in several cities, it is probable there would have been popular tumults before now; but everybody that I see, appears to me to live in constant fear of mobs, and in a great degree of uncertainty whether they will rise in favor of war or against it; in favor of England or against it; in favor of the Prince or of the city of Amsterdam; in favor of America or against it. I have ventured in the midst of these critical circ.u.mstances, pressed as I am to get money to discharge the bills of exchange, which Congress have drawn and I have accepted, to open a loan; but this is looked upon as a very hardy and dangerous measure, which n.o.body but an American would have risked, and I am obliged to a.s.sure Congress, that people are as yet so much afraid of being pointed out by the mob or the soldiery, as favorers of this loan, that I have no hopes at all of succeeding for several months, if ever.