Adams Papers

To John Adams from John Brown Cutting, 16 June 1790

From John Brown Cutting

London 16 June 1790

Dear Sir,

I write this note just to inclose you a couple of newspapers.1

Such is the variable & distracted state of affairs at present here and all over Europe that it is impossible to form an opinion one day that events of the next will not overturn.

The cabinet of St Jame’s having involved this nation in the fortunes of Prussia—it is next to impossible that a general war shou’d not ensue.2 France has offered to mediate between Spain and Britain . . .3 and since the credit of the paper money begins to be establish’d on the sale of the ecclesiastical territory which the national assembly have ordered she is again respectable here.—

Our country will be equally courted by both sides . . . and will I trust profit from the present crisis.—4

With the greatest esteem & respect / I have the honor to be / Your Most Obedt Sert:

John Brown Cutting

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “John Adams Esq V. P. U. S.”

1Enclosure not found.

2Cutting referred to the Triple Alliance with Prussia and the Netherlands, which committed Great Britain to aiding Prussian diplomatic efforts with both Austria and the Ottoman Empire. On 20 June Frederick William II, king of Prussia, ratified a Prusso-Turkish treaty. On 27 July Prussia and Austria negotiated the Convention of Reichenbach, resolving their conflicts with the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Netherlands (vol. 19:309; Black, British Foreign Policy description begins Jeremy Black, British Foreign Policy in an Age of Revolutions, 1783–1793, Cambridge, Eng., 1994. description ends , p. 261, 262).

3Ellipses here and below in MS.

4The Gazette d’Amsterdam, 8 June, projected that an Anglo-Spanish war would significantly benefit the United States, because either European power would assist Americans in obtaining free navigation of the Mississippi River (William Ray Manning, The Nootka Sound Controversy, Washington, D.C., 1905, p. 421).

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