The drafts already made, and the negotiations in Barbary, will exhaust your little fund in Amsterdam; and, before next March, all your servants in Europe must return home for want of means, even of subsistence, unless something is done; our countrymen should not expect that miracles will be wrought for their relief; if their affairs are not conducted with wisdom and activity, they will reap, most certainly, the fruits of folly and supineness. Before I conclude, I will mention one more extravagance that I know is lurking in some hearts here. They would willingly embarrass Mr. Pitt in any rational plan of agreement with me, and cheerfully precipitate him into a war with the United States, if they could, well knowing that it would be his ruin. They think, and, I can add, they say, "that Canada and Nova Scotia must soon be ours; there must be a war for it; they know how it will end, but the sooner the better; this done, we shall be forever at peace; till then, never." But these people do not consider that this will involve us in unchangeable connections with France, and prove the final ruin of this country. The stocks have lately risen to sixty-five and sixty-six. Whether this is owing to ministerial tricks, or the real affluence of money, it will raise the fund of pride and vanity in the nation in a much greater proportion, and make it more difficult for the minister to do what even he may think right with America. I must conclude, by repeating that my only hopes are in the virtue, resolution, and unanimity of my fellow-citizens. With great respect, &c. JOHN ADAMS. RICHARD HENRY LEE TO JOHN ADAMS. New York, 24 October, 1785. DEAR SIR, Having yesterday written a long letter to you, I have now only to request your attention to the following business, which is of very great importance to those whom it concerns, and who form a considerable portion of the citizens of these States. The representatives of those professing the church of England system of religion, having been lately assembled at Philadelphia, where lay and clerical deputies from seven States were convened in general convention, for the purpose, among other things, of preserving and maintaining a succession of divines in their church, in a manner which they judge consonant to the gospel, and no way interfering with the religious or civil rights of others, have sent an address to the archbishops and bishops of England, proposing a plan for the consecration of American bishops. It is imagined that, before any thing is done in this business by the bishops of England, they will consult the King and ministry, who, it is apprehended, may now, as heretofore, suppose that any step of the kind being taken in England might be considered here as an officious intermeddling with our affairs that would give offence on this side the water. Should this be the case, the church of England members in congress have the greatest reliance on your liberal regard for the religious rights of all men, that you will remove mistaken scruples from the mind of administration, by representing how perfectly consonant it is with our revolution principles professed throughout all the States, that every denomination of Christians has a right to pursue its own religious modes, interfering not with others; that, instead of giving offence, it must give content, by evidencing a friendly disposition to accommodate the people here who are members of the church in question. In proof of this, congress did lately show their attention to the accommodation of this class of Christians, by communicating to the different executives your information from the Danish minister of that King's willingness to facilitate the business of ordination for our church. And the assembly of Virginia hath incorporated this society, under which act of incorporation the convention was held in that State, that sent both lay and clerical deputies to the general convention lately held in Philadelphia. I have the honor to be, &c. RICHARD HENRY LEE. JOHN JAY TO JOHN ADAMS. New York, 1 November, 1785. DEAR SIR, The inclosed letter from President Lee to you (of the subject and contents of which I am informed) will explain to you the design of the letters and papers which accompany this. The ones to the archbishops of York and Canterbury are left open for your information; and that you may the more easily determine with yourself, either to deliver it in person, or merely to forward it by a proper conveyance. The attention you manifested to the Episcopalian church, in the affair of Denmark, has much obliged the members of it, and induced them to hope for your further good offices. The convention are not inclined to acknowledge or have any thing to do with Mr. Seabury. His own high church principles, and the high church principles of those who ordained him, do not quadrate either with the political principles of our Episcopalians in general, or with those on which our revolution and constitutions are founded. They wish, therefore, to have a bishop to whom no objections of that kind can be made, and that is the object of their present measures. It will be much in your power to aid them in the attainment of it; and, for my own part, I think, your friendly interposition will neither disserve your country nor yourself. To me, personally, bishops are of little importance; but, as our civil affairs are now circumstanced, I have no objections to gratifying those who wish to have them. I confess I do not like the principles of the non-jurors; and, I think, the less patronage such opinions meet with among us, the better. With great and sincere esteem, JOHN JAY. TO SECRETARY JAY. DEAR SIR, Grosvenor Square, Westminster, 4 November, 1785. Yesterday, at the minister's levee, one of the foreign ministers put into my hands a Leyden gazette, in which I found announced to the public an arrêt of the King of France of the 18th of September, in which a bounty of ten livres per quintal is promised to any French merchants who shall import into the market of the French West India Islands, or of Spain, Portugal, or Italy, any fish of the French fisheries, and in which the impost upon all foreign fish is raised to five livres a quintal. This amounts to an encouragement of fifteen livres a quintal upon French fish in the West Indies. As the supply of the French islands with fish is so material, perhaps so essential to our fishery, this ordinance deserves the earliest and most serious attention of every man in America, who has any regard to our fisheries. As the supply of the French islands with fish is of so much consequence to the British fishery, I took occasion, in a conference with the Marquis of Carmarthen, to mention it to him, and to observe to him, that I left it to his Lordship to consider, whether the British fisheries could be supported against the influence of this ordinance, without the freest communication of supplies from the United States. His Lordship thought it deserved consideration, and that was all the oracle would deliver. I afterwards mentioned it to Mr. Fraser, his Lordship's under secretary of state. The Marquis of Carmarthen, that I may let you into enough of his character to account for his conduct, is a modest, amiable man, treats all men with civility, and is much esteemed by the foreign ministers, as well as the nation, but is not an enterprising minister; is never assuming, and, I believe, never takes upon himself to decide any point of importance, without consulting the cabinet. He never gives his private opinion; but, in all things which respect America, I do not believe that he or any other of the ministry has yet formed any. We shall, I think, learn nothing of their designs till they are brought forth in parliament in the course of the winter and spring. Mr. Pitt commenced his career with sentiments rather liberal towards the United States; but, since he has been prime minister, he has appeared to give ear to the chancellor and Lord Gower, Mr. Dundas, and Mr. Jenkinson, with their instruments, Erving, Chalmers, Smith and others, so much as to have departed from his first principle. He has tried the experiments of the Newfoundland bill and the fourth Irish proposition; but, finding the fatal success of both, he may be brought back to the system with which he set out; but I doubt it; or rather, I am convinced he never will, until he is obliged to it, by our States adopting navigation acts. There is published this morning, in the Chronicle, the proceedings at Charleston on the 15th August, which look very encouraging. If the legislature of South Carolina lay partial restrictions on the ships of such nations as have no treaty of commerce with the United States, I think it cannot be doubted that all the other States will come into the measure; because there is none which will suffer a greater temporary inconvenience by it. These measures have a tendency to encourage the naval stores of North Carolina so much, that she will be a gainer. But the principal danger is, that these restrictions may not be sufficiently high to give a clear advantage to the ships of the United States. I cannot repeat to you too often, sir, that all my hopes are founded upon such exertions in America. The trade with America must come under consideration of parliament in the renovation of the intercourse act, if not of the Newfoundland act; and their deliberations will be influenced by nothing but American navigation acts. I fear there are not enough of these yet made, nor likely to be made this year, to have much effect. This nation is strangely blinded by prejudice and passion. They are ignorant of the subject beyond conception. There is a prohibition of the truth, arising from popular anger. Printers will print nothing which is true, without pay, because it displeases their readers; while their gazettes are open to lies, because they are eagerly read, and make the paper sell. Scribblers for bread are wholly occupied in abusing the United States; and writers for fame, if there are any such left in this country, find the public applause wholly against us. The rise of the stocks has established Mr. Pitt; and, if he were willing, he would scarcely be able to do right, until America shall enable him and oblige him. I am, sir, &c. JOHN ADAMS. TO SECRETARY JAY. Grosvenor Square, Westminster, 5 November, 1785. DEAR SIR, The Chevalier de Pinto, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Portugal, after a long absence by leave of his Court, is lately arrived here from Lisbon. Upon several occasions, when I met him at Court and upon visits, he told me that he had orders from his Court to confer with me, upon the project of a treaty between the United States and Portugal; but he never descended to particulars till yesterday, VOL. VIII. 29 V |