We do not think ourselves authorized to give any Orders concerning the Deductions to be made from the Seamen’s Price money or Wages, of what was advanced to them. The Resolutions of Congress must be complied with as to your Stores and Furniture, we suppose there can be no Difficulty, but that M. Simpson will as he ought to deliver you your private Property upon Request. We are not informed...
2Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to J. P. Mercklé, 13 April 1778 (Adams Papers)
Passy, 13 April 1778. printed : JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 4:52 . In replying to Mercklé’s letter of 26 March ( Cal. Franklin Papers, A.P.S. I. Minis Hays, comp., Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society , Philadelphia, 1908; 5 vols. ,...
Capt. Jones has represented to us his Desire and Intention of returning to the Countess of Selkirk, some Plate which his People took from her house. We apprehend that Congress would not disapprove of this Measure, as far as it should depend upon them; and We therefore consent on the Part of the United States that this Plate should be return’d. This Consent is to be understood to extend no...
Passy, 22 May 1778. printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 4:110 . Citing the usual practice under the law of nations of allowing six months after the commencement of hostilities for subjects of both sides to remove their property, Adams and Franklin requested that, if possible, the General Court...
Upon reconsidering Job Prince’s Letter, it is observable, that there is not a single Circumstance mention’d in it by which one may be assured that it is either an honest Letter or a Forgery and a Trick to get into their Power from us some Person of Confidence from whom or from the Letters we might write by him they might pick out some useful Intelligence. The releasing a French Fisherman taken...
We have just received a Message from Monsr. Le Comte De Vergennes, by his Secretary, acquainting Us; that Information is received from England of the Intention of the Cabinet there, to offer (by additional Instructions to their Commissioners) Independence to the United States, on Condition of their making a Separate Peace, relying on their Majority in both Houses, for Approbation of the...
Paris, 18 May 1778. printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 4:102 ; ordered printed by the congress as a broadside (illustration facing p. 99 ). This letter was signed by Adams and Franklin because, according to Arthur Lee in his Letterbook ( PCC , No. 102, IV, f. 7), “this Intelligence was sent...
Passy, 1 November 1778. Dft , heavily damaged, MH-H : Lee PapersBenjamin Franklin and John Adams asked Schweighauser to help Mme. Gerard, wife of the French minister to the United States, obtain the return of portraits of herself and her son that she had attempted to send to her husband. According to the attached copy of a letter of 26 Oct. from Mme. Gerard to the Commissioners, the portraits...
Passy, 9 September 1778. RC in Adams’ hand PPAmP . printed (with enclosure): Magazine of American History, 12:462–463 (Nov. 1884). Franklin and Adams sent the Council a letter of 10 Aug. from Thomas Hutchinson to Dr. James Lloyd of Boston, concerning land owned by Hutchinson’s sister, Grizell Sanford, and enclosing his and his sister’s powers of attorney. Franklin and Adams had opened the...
10Franklin and John Adams to John Paul Jones, 10 February 1779: résumé (Franklin Papers)
LS : National Archives; copies: Library of Congress, Massachusetts Historical Society, National Archives (two) <Passy, February 10, 1779: As the change in command of the Ranger might be subject to misinterpretation, we hereby certify that your leaving that ship was with our consent and at the express request of M. de Sartine, who desired to employ you in some public service. That Lt. Simpson...