Thomas Jefferson to Franklin and John Adams: Résumé, 17 October 1784
Thomas Jefferson to Franklin and John Adams7
AL: Massachusetts Historical Society
⟨Cul-de-sac Tetebout, October 17, 1784: Mr. Jefferson sends to Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin drafts of the two letters to be sent to the Duke of Dorset.8 One is on the separate articles. The other is on the general subject, and written in the form that they had agreed upon during their last meeting. Having reconsidered the latter, he sends a second version that explicitly notices Hartley’s positive responses; they should make a choice and he will sign whichever they agree on. P.S.: He is ready to concur in a letter or letters about “the man in the inquisition.”9⟩
7. Published in Adams Papers, XVI, 341; and in Jefferson Papers, VII, 444.
8. None of the drafts has been located. Both letters were issued on Oct. 28. The first—although TJ here described it second—was a variant of the circular letter the commissioners sent to foreign ministers (for which see the commissioners to Sousa, Sept. 9), adding that they had announced their new powers to Hartley before he left Paris, and quoting Hartley’s assurances of British friendship. The second letter, which TJ had evidently just drafted, enumerates four “points distinct from any regulations of commerce” that Congress had instructed the commission to negotiate: a clarification of the timetable of the Jan. 20, 1783, armistice; an amendment to Article 4 of the definitive treaty that would give American debtors more time to repay their prewar debts to British creditors; compensation for owners whose slaves had been removed by the British army in violation of Article 7 of the definitive treaty; and an arrangement for paying the expenses incurred by prisoners of war on both sides (which the peace commissioners had suggested to Hartley in June, 1783: XL, 256–7). These two letters are published in Adams Papers, XVI, 354–8; Jefferson Papers, VII, 456–8.
9. Jonas Hartwell; see BF to Carmichael, Oct. 11[–15] (postscript), and Jonathan Williams, Sr., to BF, Dec. 16.
Three days after writing the present letter, TJ consulted BF (at Passy) and JA (at Auteuil) about a case that Uriah Forrest had brought to his attention: the recent arrest in London of Philadelphia merchant Blair McClenachan, on charges of privateering during the war. The commissioners agreed that they had no authorization to intervene in such cases: Jefferson Papers, VII, 435–6, 452.