John Jay Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jay/01-01-02-0183

To John Jay from Robert Morris, 23 September 1776

From Robert Morris

Phila. Sept. 23d 1776

Dear Sir

Altho your express delivered me your favour last Wednesday or Thursday yet I did not receive the letter from Mr. Deane untill this day and shall now send after the Express that he may Convey this safe to your hands. Shou’d he be gone I must find some other safe conveyance. You will find enclosed both Mr. D—ne’s letters as you desired and I shall thank you for the Copy of the Invisible part, he had Communicated so much of this Secret to me, before his departure, as to let me know he had fixed with you a mode of writing that would be invisible to the rest of the World, he also promised to ask you to make a full Communication to me, but in this use your pleasure. The Secret so farr as I do or shall know it, will remain so to all other persons. It appears clear to me that we may very soon Involve all Europe in a Warr by managing properly the apparent forwardness of the Court of France, its a horrid consideration that our own Safety shou’d call on us to involve other Nations in the Calamities of Warr, can this be morally right or have morality & Policy nothing to do with each other (perhaps it may not be good Policy to investigate the Question at this time).1 I will therefore only ask you whether General Howe will give us time to cause a diversion favourable to us in Europe, I confess as things now appear to me the prospect is gloomy Indeed therefore if you can administer Comfort do it; Why are we so long deprived of your abilitys in Congress, perhaps they are more usefully exerted where you are, that may be the case, but such Men as You, in times like these, should be every where. I am with true sentiments of respect & esteem, Dr Sir Your obedt. hble Servt.

Robt Morris

John Jay Esqr

ALS, NNC (EJ: 6992). Addressed: “To/John Jay Esqr.” Endorsed. Enclosure: portion of Silas Deane to Jay, 11–23 June 1776, incorporated in invisible ink within a letter ostensibly written by one M. Longueville to his brother in Philadelphia, addressed care of Robert Morris. For the background of the enclosure, see above, JJ to Morris, 15 Sept. 1776, and for the transcription of the invisible parts of the letter, see JJ to Morris, 6 Oct. 1776, below.

1Opening parenthesis added by editors. Both Franklin and Morris, while acknowledging that the French were not disposed to enter into an immediate war with Britain, expected that France’s aid to the Americans would ultimately provoke war. They wrote on 1 Oct. to fellow Secret Committee members regarding the necessity of keeping secret their dealings with the French, adding, “we therefore think it our duty to Cultivate their favourable disposition towards us, draw from them all the support we can and in the end their private Aid must assist us to establish Peace or inevitably draw them in as Parties to the War.” PBF description begins William B. Willcox et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, Conn., 1959–) description ends , 22: 636–37. No response to Morris’s query on the morality of involving other powers in war has been found.

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