Benjamin Franklin Papers
Documents filtered by: Author="American Commissioners" AND Period="Confederation Period"
sorted by: recipient
Permanent link for this document:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-43-02-0142

The American Commissioners to Aranda: Résumé, 28 October 1784

The American Commissioners to Aranda

Copy:4 National Archives

⟨Passy, October 28, 1784: We received your letter of September 275 and thank you for sending the news of our appointment to your court. Regarding your question of whether one or more of us could travel to Madrid in order to conduct and conclude the negotiation, we have the honor to inform you that the United States in Congress assembled has proposed treaties with most of the maritime powers of Europe, and sent their ministers here for the accommodation of those powers. We have communicated with many courts through their ministers here, in order to enter into negotiations with such as are empowered to treat with us. However desirous we may be of showing our respect to the Court of Mardrid by traveling there, it will be difficult for us to leave this place until we have finished the business that we have started, which may take much time.6 We therefore hope that the Court of Madrid may make an exception in this case.⟩

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

4In Humphreys’ letterbook.

5The commissioners delayed answering Aranda’s letter in hopes that “in the mean time he would get an answer from his court which would save us the difficulty of answering him”: TJ to James Monroe, Nov. 11, 1784, in Jefferson Papers, VII, 510.

6JA described their difficulties in more personal terms. Writing to Elbridge Gerry on Nov. 4, JA reported that BF had not been farther than JA’s house in Auteuil, just one mile distant, for the past year. Riding in a carriage was out of the question, and even walking caused him pain. BF could not go to Spain, and such a journey would be “horrible” to TJ and himself. Moreover, Congress had cut their salaries so much that they could not “bear double Expences. indeed it is impossible for Us to See any Company or to live in Character”: Adams Papers, XVI, 368.

Index Entries