John Jay Papers
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To John Jay from the Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Robert R. Livingston), 13 December 1781

From the Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Robert R. Livingston)

Philadelphia 13th. December 1781

Dear Sir

My last letter of the 28th: of November sent by the Marquis de la Fayette1 must for the most part have been unintelligible to you,—owing to an unfortunate mistake of Mr Thomson’s who delivered me a Cypher sent by Mr. Palfrey2 which you never received, instead of that sent by Franks.— The quadruplicate enclosed is in the last, so that you will no longer be at a loss for my meaning— Since the date of that Letter, the Enemy have thought it prudent to abandon Wilmington in North Carolina This Post was extremely important to them, not only as it checked the Trade of that State but as it directly communicated with the disaffected Counties. For it must be confessed that tho’ in other parts of the Continent they had only well wishers, in North Carolina they had active Partizans. These they have left to the Mercy of their Country, and abandoned as disgracefully as the capitulation of York did those of Virginia— It is not improbable that when General St Clair joins the Southern Army, the Enemy will evacuate Savannah, as they are at present extremely weak there, and unless they reinforce from New York, may be attacked with a prospect of Success,3 your Letter of the 20th. of September has been received, and read in Congress,4 They have not been pleased to direct any particular Answer thereto, so that you are to consider it as their wish that you execute the Commission with which they have invested you.— I was not in Congress at the time the Instruction of which you complain was given,5 but have heard it justified upon many Principles [which] arise out of our local politicks, It was done before your appointment, so that it would not imply the smallest distrust of your Zeal or abilities—there were and allways will be a variety of different Interests among the Respresentatives of so [extended] a Country. To bring them to concur in one point in which each must sacrifice something was extremely dificult and would have been attended with the most dangerous delays as they then supposed— They knew that the Peace was absolutely in the power of France and they thought it more prudent to interest her generosity than to give her a plea to do as she chose from our insisting upon what she might deem unreasonable, or not being what we insisted upon. You will easily see, my dear Sir, that your Abilities and Address will not be less serviceable to your Country in the management of this Business than in any other of the great Affairs in which they have hitherto been employed— The Minister has communicated to me a letter from the Count de Vergennes,6 expressing his Master’s satisfaction at the Confidence reposed in him and assuring us that nothing but the most absolute necessity shall induce him to make the smallest sacrifice of the Interest we have entrusted to his Care that he has no reason to conclude from the operations of the present Campaign that such necessity will exist. He expresses great pleasure at your appointment. I ought also to tell you that Doctor Franklin has accepted the Commission with marks of Satisfaction, from Mr. Adams, we have not heard since.—7 I congratulate you upon the determination of Spain at length to open a way to a treaty tho I must confess I have no great Hope of Success in it from the character of the Negociator8

We wait with the utmost impatience your next dispatches, we have heard that you have offered the navigation of the Mississippi,9 but we are ignorant upon what Conditions and what is still worse we hear that the answer to this important offer is delayed tho the ground on which we stand enables [us] to speake in a firmer tone than we have done. You are acquainted with facts, the rest may safely be left to your Judgement, on which we have the greatest reliance. [My last letter] may be of use to you, if you think that Spain really wishes even [to] be connected with us and only stands aloof to take advantage of our necessity.— You see that I neglect no opportunity of writing, I flatter myself you will be equally attentive to let us hear from you.— It is not without some degree of pain that we receive our earliest Intelligence frequently from the Minister of France— I know you may retort upon us with too much justice, but I hope to give you less reason to do so in future. I send a packet of News Papers with this, I sent an other some time ago. I hope they may reach you, in one of them you will find an Ordinance of Congress which comprizes all their Resolutions with respect to Captures, and forfeits all British Goods, which have not been taken as prizes.—10 Perhaps this may make some arrangements with the Court of Spain necessary, that is if any prize Goods are reshiped from there to America— I am, my dear Sir, with the greatest Esteem & Regard your most Obedt. humble Servant

Rob. R. Livingston11

A—over signifies e, a. under, s final.12

LS, triplicate, partly in code, NNC (EJ: 7926). Marked “No. 3” and “Triplicate”. Encoded utilizing the 11 July 1781 Thomson code (WE007), decoded in part by JJ, interlinearly and on separate sheets, with additional decoding by the JJUP staff (indicated by square brackets). Entered in JJ’s account book of letters sent and received, NNC, as received 24 Mar. 1782. LS, partly in code, not decoded, NNC (EJ: 12769). Endorsed: “Recd 5 Feby 1782 from / Mr Del Campo”. LS, duplicate, NHi: Jay (EJ: 570). Endorsed: “ . . . Recd 15 March 1782”. Quadruplicate LS not found. Dft, encoded by RRL, NHi: Robert R. Livingston (EJ: 813). LbkCs, partly in code, not decoded, DNA: PCC, item 79, 1: 334–37 (EJ: 11360); item 118, 51–55 (EJ: 5190), which lists the ships on which four copies of this letter were sent as follows: “1st. Copy Sent by the Ship Hope Capt. Haymon bound for Cadiz, Sailed from this port the   of December 2plicate, sent by the Ship Nonsuch, Captain—bound for   Sailed from this   the   3plicate sent by the ship Hermione 4plicate sent by the ship General Oriely from Baltimore”. Printed with all coded portions omitted in HPJ description begins Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay (4 vols.; New York, 1890–93) description ends , 2: 163–34, and RDC description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1889) description ends , 5: 44–46. For comments on JJ’s receipt of this letter, see RRL to JJ, 9 May 1782, below. See “John Jay’s Use of Codes and Ciphers” (editorial note) on p. 11.

2Colonel William Palfrey, newly elected consul to France, who was lost at sea. See LDC description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends , 17: 201.

3The British evacuated Wilmington, North Carolina, on 14 Nov. St. Clair reached Greene’s camp in January 1782 with limited reinforcements, and the opposing armies remained stalemated through the winter. Savannah was not evacuated until July 1782.

5The instructions of 15 June 1781, above. RRL had not attended Congress since September 1780 and did not return to Philadelphia until 19 Oct. 1781. See RRL to JJ, 20 Oct. 1781, above; LDC description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends , 16: xxii; and PRM description begins E. James Ferguson et al., eds., The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784 (9 vols.; Pittsburgh, Pa., 1973–99) description ends , 3: 93.

6Vergennes to La Luzerne, 7 Sept. 1781, FrPMAE: CP-EU, 18: 212–17. La Luzerne informed RRL about this letter in conversations that the latter reported to Congress on 23 Nov. For RRL’s “Heads of an oral communication made to the Secretary by Luzerne, Minister of France,” see RDC description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1889) description ends , 4: 859–60.

7For BF’s letter to the President of Congress, 13 Sept. 1781, accepting the commission, see PBF description begins William B. Willcox et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (39 vols. to date; New Haven, Conn., 1959–) description ends , 35: 474–76. JA received his copy of the new commission on 24 Aug. Illness interrupted his attention to public business, however, and it was not until 15 Oct. 1781 that he wrote the president of Congress acknowledging receipt of his commission and accepting it.

9See JJ to the President of Congress, 3 Oct. 1781, above; and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs to JJ, 16 and 27 Apr. 1782, below.

10See the ordinance of 27 Mar. 1781, entitled “An Ordinance relative to the capture and condemnation of prizes.” JCC description begins Worthington C. Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1904–37) description ends , 19: 314–16.

11JJ acknowledged receipt of the LS, RRL’s third letter to him, along with a duplicate of RRL’s second, of 28 Nov. 1781, in his letters to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and to the President of Congress, both 6 Feb. 1782, below. He noted there that the letters had been delivered by Campo and that he was unable to read the encoded portions because the cipher, said to be enclosed, was missing. He remarked further that he had received a duplicate copy of the Thomson cipher through the post office, with evident marks of inspection.

12The postscript (decoded by the editors), which appears in the Dft and LSs, describes a modification to the Thomson code.

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