From John Jay to Peter W. Yates, 1 March 1787
To Peter W. Yates
New York 1 March 1787
Dr Sir
agreable to your Request I now send you inclosed a Copy of the Pamphlet mentioned in your Letter of 31 Jany.1 on reading it you will find a certain Transaction stated as having passed in the Presence of Mr Adams. Inclosed with this you find a Copy of a Letter from him on that Subject; I do not chuse to publish it, as it does not appear to me to be proper or necessary to take further notice of the Calumnies to which it relates, and which in the opinion of the candid and disinterested, can do no Injury to Your most obt. & h’ble Servt,
John Jay
ALS, NHi: Misc. Mss., Yates, Peter W. (EJ: 860). Endorsed. Dft, NNC (EJ: 9309). Enclosure: Copy of JA to JJ, 14 Feb. 1786, NHi: Misc. Mss., Yates, Peter W. (EJ: 655), above.
1. New York lawyer Peter W. Yates had served in Congress in 1786. His letter to JJ, 31 Jan. 1787, has not been found. For the pamphlet under discussion, see the editorial note “Lewis Littlepage Redivivus,” above. The transaction in question related to Littlepage’s retraction in JA’s presence of his charge that JJ left him in Spain to spy on William Carmichael