Certification of John Adams’ Shipment of Books, 2 March 1779
Certification of John Adams’ Shipment of Books
DS:7 Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Passy March 2. 1779
These certify, that the Box or Caise which accompanies this contains only a Quantity of Books belonging to the Honourable John Adams, one of the late Commissioners from the United States of America, and that they are intended for Nantes in their Way to America.—8 All concerned are requested to permit them to pass.
B Franklin
Minister Plenipotentiary
from the United States
to the Court of France.
Notation in Franklin’s hand: Certificate for Mr Adams’s Box of Books
7. In JA’s hand.
8. BF’s appointment as minister plenipotentiary left his former fellow commissioner JA without employment. (Former commissioner Arthur Lee was still commissioner-designate to the court of Spain.) JA told his wife, “The Congress I presume expect that I should come home, and I shall come accordingly”; to the president of Congress he reported that unless he received counterorders he would return via the first available frigate: Butterfield, Adams Correspondence, III, 175, 181n. On March 2, above, BF notified Landais that JA would be a passenger during his coming return voyage to America.