From Benjamin Franklin to Spinola, 13 September 1784
To Spinola
Copy:6 National Archives
Passy, Septr. 13. 1784.
Sir
I received the Letter you did me the honour of writing to me the 9th inst. respecting the appointment of a Consul to reside at Boston on the part of your State, to protect the interests of your commerce & people in America. On consideration I thought it right to communicate the same to my Colleagues now here, Mr Adams & Mr Jefferson, they being with me commissioned to make Treaties of commerce with such maritime Nations as may be desirous of trading with our States. We are sensible of the delicacy with which your most serene Government has proceeded in the proposition, and we are persuaded that on all occasions equal respect will be shown by the Congress. But being of opinion that previous to the appointment of a Consul, some convention will be necessary that may ascertain his powers, previleges &c, and that such a convention will most naturally follow a Treaty of Amity & Commerce; we take this occasion to inform you of our having full powers for making such Treaties: and that we are willing & ready to enter into a negotiation for that purpose with the Most serene Government of Genoa, whenever it shall be to them agreeable.
The Copy I have the honour of enclosing to you of some late Resolutions of Congress, will show the utility & necessity of such a Treaty to the freedom of Trade between our Countries.7
I am with great & sincere respect, Sir Your Most humble & most obedient Servant8
B Franklin
A M le Marquis de Spinola Ministre Plenipotentiaire de Genes.
6. In Humphreys’ letterbook.
7. The congressional resolutions of May 7, 1784, named Genoa as one of the states with which the commissioners were to conclude a commercial treaty and outlined the provisions of such a treaty: XLII, 217–20.
8. Spinola wrote to the Senate of Genoa that same day, Sept. 13, paraphrasing the contents of this letter as a record of what BF had told him during a personal meeting. The following March, the Senate asked him to provide information about treaties that the United States had made with other nations. Spinola referred them to the copy of Constitutions des treize Etats-Unis de l’Amérique that he had sent in 1783. It appears that Spinola received no further instructions: Antonio Pace, Benjamin Franklin and Italy (Philadelphia, 1958), pp. 114–15.