Adams Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-13-02-0157

From John Adams to Elbridge Gerry, 19 August 1782

To Elbridge Gerry

Aug. 19. 1782

My dear Friend

I am ashamed to let Mr Guild1 go without a long Letter to you—but you must pardon me. Mr Guild calls upon me for my Dispatches.

There are Conferences begun about Preliminaries at Paris and Things are tending to a Congress, but I fancy they would have gone on much better, if Congriss had adhered to <your> their first Plan. Never did the Neccessity of a clear and firm Conduct appear more plainly to me than upon this occasion.2

It was my Intention to have written you at large upon affairs—but Mr Guilds obligations to go sooner than expected have disappointed me. As some Compensation however I inclose to you all the newest Papers. In to days it is said France insists on a formal Acknowledgment of American Independence, that her Ministers may meet a Congress.3

Adieu

RC (MHi:Gerry II Papers).

1. For Benjamin Guild, future husband of AA’s cousin Elizabeth Quincy, see AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, and others, Cambridge, 1963–?. description ends , 3:322. Guild sailed from Amsterdam on the Apollo and arrived at Boston on 9 October. He carried a packet for AA, but its content and other letters that Guild may have carried cannot be positively identified (same, 5:11).

2. That is, Congress should not have appointed a five-member joint peace commission in 1781 in place of his 1779 commission as the sole minister authorized to negotiate an Anglo-American peace treaty.

3. It is not known what papers JA sent Gerry, but see the report from Paris dated 12 Aug. in the Gazette d’Amsterdam of 20 August.

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    Adams Papers
    Title
    From John Adams to Elbridge Gerry, 19 August 1782
    Author
    Adams, John
    Recipient
    Gerry, Elbridge
    Date
    19 August 1782

    Reference

    Cite as
    “From John Adams to Elbridge Gerry, 19 August 1782,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-13-02-0157. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 13, May–October 1782, ed. Gregg L. Lint, C. James Taylor, Margaret A. Hogan, Jessie May Rodrique, Mary T. Claffey, and Hobson Woodward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006, pp. 254–255.]

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