1. On 11 May, in consequence of its 7 May resolution “that a commission be issued to Mr. J. Adams, Mr. B. Franklin and Mr. T. Jefferson, giving powers to them, or to the greater part of them, to make and receive propositions for such treaties of amity and Commerce, and to negotiate and sign the same, transmitting them to Congress for their final ratification; and that such commission be in force for a term not exceeding two years,” Congress resolved on the form of the commissions, all of which were to bear the date 12 May (JCC description begins Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, Gaillard Hunt, John C. Fitzpatrick, Roscoe R. Hill, and others, Washington, D.C., 1904–1937; 34 vols. description ends , 26:362; 27:372–374). The commission printed here is an example of the twenty commissions issued by Congress on this date for treaties with European nations and the Barbary States. The others were Russia, Austria, Prussia, Denmark, Saxony, Hamburg, Spain, Portugal, Genoa, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Venice, Sardinia, the Ottoman Empire, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. The commissions are virtually identical, except for the different formulas depending on the country for which each was issued and because of the copying process itself. For a detailed examination of what textual variations exist, see Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, Princeton, 1950–. description ends , 7:262–265. The only other original 12 May commission in the Adams Papers is for the treaty with Portugal; for the others, see MHi:Coolidge Collection. The commissions were enclosed with a 16 May letter from Charles Thomson to Thomas Jefferson and were carried by Jefferson when he sailed aboard the Ceres from Boston for France on 5 July. He reached Paris on 6 Aug. (Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, Princeton, 1950–. description ends , 7:261–262, 312, 364). On 25 Aug. JA wrote to C. W. F. Dumas, below, and noted that our commissions “are as numerous as the sands.” For a later revision of the commissions to negotiate treaties with the Barbary States, see the 11 March 1785 letter from John Jay to the commissioners, and the joint commission to negotiate a treaty with Morocco of the same date, both below.

On 3 June 1784 Congress authorized three additional commissions for supplemental treaties with France, the Netherlands, and Sweden (JCC description begins Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, Gaillard Hunt, John C. Fitzpatrick, Roscoe R. Hill, and others, Washington, D.C., 1904–1937; 34 vols. description ends , 27:530). This likely was done to avoid offending those nations, but the initial oversight was probably owing to the fact that relatively recent treaties existed between them and the United States. They were sent under cover of an 18 June letter from Thomson to the commissioners, below.