MS (DLC: PCC, No. 36, IV); in TJ’s hand, with additions by Hugh Williamson as noted below; endorsed by clerk: “Motion that the Agent of Marine to have three Vessels ready to convey in some port of France Copies of the Ratification of the definitive Treaty of peace.” The resolution bears no date and no reference to it appears in JCC description begins Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, ed. W. C. Ford and others, Washington, 1904–1937 description ends (for reasons explained in note to TJ’s resolutions introduced on 27 Dec. 1783, q.v.), but TJ himself stated that he moved this resolution “on the 26th. to save time” (same).

This resolution touched off an acrimonious discussion in Congress: “the debates ran high,” Edward Hand wrote to Jasper Yeates; the Pennsylvania delegates wrote for instructions on this “Question of great Importance … Whether Seven States in Congress Assembled are competent to a Ratification of the Definitive Treaty”; and, after a brief lull following the first skirmish in which TJ was able to block the move to ratify by seven states, a compromise was brought forward by him (Hand to Yeates, 30 Dec. 1783; Penna. Delegates to President Dickinson, 30 Dec. 1783; Burnett, Letters of Members description begins Edmund C. Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress description ends , vii, Nos. 470–1; see following resolutions by TJ and notes there).