From George Washington to Maria I of Portugal, 17 February 1797
To Maria I of Portugal
[Philadelphia, 17 Feb. 1797]
Great and Good Friend
Desirous of continuing a friendly and useful intercourse between the subjects of your Majesty and the Citizens of these States, and the proofs of our good will and consideration towards your Majesty, I have named John Quincy Adams, one of our distinguished citizens, Minister Plenipotentiary for the United States of America near your Majesty. He knows the interests we take, and shall ever take, in your prosperity and happiness; and I beseech your Majesty to give entire credence to whatever he shall deliver on our part, and most of all when he shall assure you of the sincerity of our friendship.1
I pray God to keep you, Great and Good Friend under his holy protection. Written at Philadelphia the Seventeenth day of February 1797. Your Good Friend
Go: Washington
By the President
Timothy Pickering.
Secretary of State
LS, MHi: Adams Papers; L, MHi: Adams Papers; LB, MHi: Adams Papers; LB, DNA: RG 59, Credences, entry 33; copy, MHi: Adams Papers.
Maria I of Portugal had been declared insane in 1792, and her son João was the acting regent of Portugal.
In a letter of this date, GW wrote the National Assembly of the Batavian Republic (Netherlands) from Philadelphia: “Deeming it expedient that John Quincy Adams, Minister Resident from the United States of America to the Batavian Republic, should enter on another mission, he is instructed to take leave of you; and in doing it to express to you the continuance of our friendship and our sincere desire to render perpetual the harmony and good understanding which has ever subsisted between the two Republics. We are persuaded that he will do this in a manner corresponding with these sentiments and to the respect we bear you. And we pray God to have you, Great and good Friends, in his holy keeping” (LB, DNA: RG 59, Credences, entry 33). The LB indicates that Secretary of State Timothy Pickering also signed the document. On 20 Feb., GW signed both John Quincy Adams’s letter of credence as minister to Portugal and the letter to the Batavian National Assembly (see , 351).
1. On 28 May 1796, GW had nominated John Quincy Adams to replace David Humphreys as minister plenipotentiary to Portugal. The Senate approved the nomination on 30 May (see GW’s third letter to the U.S. Senate of 28 May). In a letter dated 11 June, Pickering advised Adams of his appointment but directed him to postpone his mission to Portugal. Pickering wrote: “the negociations with the Barbary powers, which were committed to Colo. Humphreys, unfortunately continue incomplete. … This circumstance, together with the fact that no minister is yet appointed to succeed you in Holland … determined the President to postpone the transfer of your services from the Hague to Lisbon. You will therefore continue to exercise your functions as Minister Resident at the Hague, until a change of circumstances shall render it expedient for you to proceed to Lisbon” (MHi: Adams Papers). These circumstances caused GW to defer signing Adams’s commission as minister to Portugal until 21 Feb. 1797. GW nominated William Vans Murray as the new minister at The Hague (see , 351; and GW to the U.S. Senate, 27 Feb. 1797; see also GW to the Batavian Republic National Assembly, 2 March 1797). In his diary entry for 9 April 1797, Adams recorded that he received papers from Pickering, including his “recall from the mission here [Netherlands], and a Commission as Minister … to Portugal” (MHi: John Quincy Adams Diary). Adams, however, never assumed his post in Portugal. President John Adams instead nominated him in May 1797 as minister to Prussia, and assigned William Loughton Smith to the diplomatic mission to Portugal in July 1797. In his diary for 18 July 1797, Adams recorded that he was “to go not to Lisbon, but to Berlin” (MHi: John Quincy Adams Diary; see also , 240–42, 248–49; and John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 June 1797, and n.5, in , 12:173–76).