From John Jay to Robert Morris, 18 December 1780
To Robert Morris
Madrid, 18 Decembr. 1780
Dear Sir
As I have lately written by different vessels to Congress, and my Friends,1 among whom I always reckon you. My chief Inducement at present is to commit the inclosed2 to your Care and to request the Favor of you to forward them.
No Letters from America of later date than July have reached me, indeed I have had the Pleasure of receiving only one from you since we parted.3 Some were probably carried with Mr. Laurens to England. It is generally said and believed that all his papers were taken,4 and I presume several letters for me were among them.
Arnold’s Plot was as unexpected as its Discovery was fortunate. His wife is much to be pitied. It is painful to see so charming a woman so sacrificed.5 Some of the wise ones predict much ill from this Mans Treason. They ascribe it to the gloomy aspect of our Affairs, and impute his desertion to a Desire of Escaping the Ruin into which he saw his Country was falling. In short the Resistance of America looks so miraculous in European Eyes; that they are ready to embrace every Opinion, however erronious, that tends to reduce the Estimate of our Power and Virtue more to a Level with that which they had formed themselves. The Rank we hold on the Scale of Prosperity generally determines the Degree of Friendship we may expect from the Mass of Mankind. This Reflection will explain the Importance which every fortunate Event in America is of in Europe.
I hope you are preparing vigourously for another Campaign for I much doubt whether a Peace will soon take Place. The Empress Queen of Hungary is dead, and the Ambitions of the Emperor will of course be less fettered.6 What Consequences will follow this Event is a Question much discussed at present. Time only can determine it.
When you see Col. Moyland tell him his Brother7 is here, and very well. We see each other often. He formerly lived at Cadiz, but as Government ordered all Irish to remove from the Seaports he was obliged with many others to quit it. It is said that their too great Attachment to Britain occasioned this Ordinance.
Be pleased to present our Compliments to our Friends, and particularly to Mrs. Morris. I am Dear Sir your affectionate Friend and Servant,
John Jay
ALS, NAlI. Addressed: “(To be sunk in Case of Capture) / The Honble Robert Morris Esqr / Philadelphia.” Endorsed in the hand of Robert Morris.
1. JJ to Elbridge Gerry, 18 Nov., above; JJ to Egbert Benson, [20] Nov., Dft, NNC (EJ: 90300); , 1: 447; , 2: 68; JJ to Philip Schuyler, 25 Nov., above.
3. Morris to JJ, 6 July, above.
4. On the capture of Henry Laurens, see JJ to Francis Dana, 19 Aug. 1780, above, note 1; for the documents that Laurens was carrying, see , 24–26.
5. Benedict Arnold’s plot to deliver West Point to the British was exposed on 25 Sept. 1780. The professed innocence of his second wife, Margaret Shippen Arnold (c. 1751–1834) is, in light of the evidence, highly dubious. See, generally, ; and James Thomas Flexner, The Traitor and the Spy: Benedict Arnold and John André (New York, 1953).
6. The Empress Maria Theresa (1717–29 Nov. 1780) was succeeded by her son, Joseph II (1741–90), who had served as coregent since 1765.
7. Jasper Alexander Moylan (1757–1812), born into a large mercantile family in Cork, Ireland, was a half brother of Colonel Stephen Moylan, who was married to SLJ’s cousin Mary Ricketts Van Horne (b. 1754). Jasper—also the brother of Clothier General John Moylan and James Moylan, a merchant at Lorient—studied law in Spain before migrating in 1781 to Philadelphia, where he became a prominent lawyer and a founder of the Hibernian Society and of the Insurance Company of North America. Also in Spain was another relative, Arthur Moylan, a Cádiz merchant recorded in JJ’s account book of letters sent and received, NNC, p. 40. See Timothy Pickering to JJ, 24 Jan. 1810, ALS, NNC (EJ: 9474); Martin Ignatius Joseph Griffin, Stephen Moylan, muster-master general, secretary and aide-de-camp to Washington, quartermaster-general, colonel of Fourth Pennsylvania light dragoons and brigadier-general of the war for American independence, the first and the last president of the Friendly sons of St. Patrick of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1909), 138, 140, 142; The Moylans of South Philadelphia, accessed 2010, http://www.themoylans.com.