John Jay Papers

The Commissioners Defend the Treaty  Editorial Note

The Commissioners Defend the Treaty

Livingston followed his letter of 25 March 1783 criticizing the conduct of the American commissioners with a dispatch of 14 April to John Adams in which he implied that Congress had ratified the preliminary articles and agreed to release its prisoners. This letter, received on 15 June, was the first news of Congress’s response to the preliminary treaty to reach the commissioners.1 Livingston’s more detailed dispatch of 21 April reported Congress’s reaction to the treaty at greater length and announced that it had ratified the preliminary articles. It was not until 3 July that Captain Joshua Barney arrived at Paris with copies of all three of Livingston’s letters.2

Jay, Adams, and Franklin gathered at Passy that same day to read and consider the dispatches. They agreed to prepare a joint response.3 While Jay and Franklin initially refrained from individual responses to Livingston’s dispatches, Adams did not. On 5 July he wrote Robert Morris: “If any man blames us, I wish him no other punishment than to have, if that were possible, just such another peace to negotiate, exactly in our situation.” He penned three letters to Livingston in as many days, defending the commissioners’ actions, denouncing French policy, and advising him that his dispatches were “not well adopted to give spirits to a melancholy man or to cure one sick with fever.”4

Jay, as the docketing on the first document below indicates, took responsibility for preparing the first draft of a joint official reply, in part because he had been primarily responsible for many of the decisions Livingston criticized, in part because Adams thought it “more probable that Dr. Franklin would agree to subscribe to a draught of Mr. Jay than his other colleague.”5

Jay probably began work almost immediately after the commissioners’ meeting on 3 July.6 His draft outlines four points to be covered. Franklin’s “Observations” (the second document below) led to the omission of the first two as unnecessary and offensive to France. The final version of the official reply, in the hand of William Temple Franklin, signed by Adams, Franklin, and Jay, and dated 18 July, includes only the third and fourth points of Jay’s draft discussing the separate and secret article.7 Jay’s private letter to Livingston of 19 July (the fourth document, below) covers the items that Franklin recommended omitting from the official reply (the third document, below). Laurens suggested another opening to the letter when he arrived on 21 July, just prior to Barney’s departure, but Adams had already left for Holland and was thus unavailable to sign a new text, so the letter was forwarded as it was, without Laurens’s signature. Aware that Adams and Jay had written individual responses, Franklin wrote Livingston on 22 July, expressing confidence that both France and Vergennes were well disposed toward America. He defended himself against Adams’s criticisms, and pronounced him someone “who means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things absolutely out of his senses.”8

Partisans of both Adams and Franklin in America spread malicious reports about the roles of one or the other. On 10 September Franklin called on his colleagues to vindicate his handling of the boundaries and fisheries issues. Jay complied in his letter of 11 September, below; Adams’s response was more grudging.9 Although the controversy gradually died down, debates on the stances and roles of the various peacemakers were periodically revived during later partisan conflicts, and upon publication of memoirs or documents by the participants.10

Livingston could not respond to the commissioners’ letters in his official capacity because he had quit the post of secretary for foreign affairs in June 1783, a month before his March and April letters arrived in France. He had offered a somewhat gentler criticism of their conduct in a private letter to Jay of 1 May 1783, above. His subsequent private correspondence with Jay is silent on the peace negotiations.11

1. See RRL to JA, 14 Apr.; and JA to RRL, 16 June 1783, PJA description begins Robert J. Taylor, Gregg L. Lint, et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (16 vols. to date; Cambridge, Mass., 1977–) description ends , 14: 407–10; 15: 34–39; RDC description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1889) description ends , 6: 488–91. Congress declared cessation of hostilities on 11 Apr., but did not formally ratify the provisional treaty until 15 Apr. 1783 (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 , 24: 238–51).

2. See RRL’s letter of 21 Apr., above. The originals of the three letters did not reach Paris until 12 July, when Colonel Matthias Ogden delivered dispatches dated 3 Jan. through 29 Apr. See PJA description begins Robert J. Taylor, Gregg L. Lint, et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (16 vols. to date; Cambridge, Mass., 1977–) description ends , 15: 106, 108n2; PRM description begins E. James Ferguson et al., eds., The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784 (9 vols.; Pittsburgh, Pa., 1973–99) description ends , 7: 761, 8: 136–37.

3. Henry Laurens had gone to England in mid-June. BF appealed to him to return as soon as possible, but by the time Laurens reached Paris the text of the reply to Livingston had been finalized. See BF to Laurens, 6 July, PHL description begins Philip M. Hamer et al., eds., The Papers of Henry Laurens (16 vols.; Columbia, S.C., 1968–2003) description ends , 16: 231–32, in which he informed Laurens that Barney had brought dispatches “as late as the first of June”, and stated that he “should be glad of your Assistance in considering and answering our public letters”; and Laurens to BF, 17 July 1783; RDC description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1889) description ends , 6: 555. Both BF and Laurens were more disposed to trust the French and had had reservations about the decision to negotiate without informing Vergennes. See Laurens to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and to the South Carolina Delegates, both 24 Dec. 1782, PHL description begins Philip M. Hamer et al., eds., The Papers of Henry Laurens (16 vols.; Columbia, S.C., 1968–2003) description ends , 16: 99–104; BF to RRL, 22 July 1783, in Giunta, Emerging Nation description begins Mary A. Giunta et al., eds., The Emerging Nation: A Documentary History of the Foreign Relations of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, 1780–1789 (3 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1996) description ends , 1: 894–95; and Peacemakers description begins Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (New York, 1965) description ends , 444–45.

4. See JA to RRL, 3, 9, 10, 11, and 13 July 1783, PJA description begins Robert J. Taylor, Gregg L. Lint, et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (16 vols. to date; Cambridge, Mass., 1977–) description ends , 15: 77, 80nn7–8, 92–97, 99–100, 106–9; PRM description begins E. James Ferguson et al., eds., The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784 (9 vols.; Pittsburgh, Pa., 1973–99) description ends , 8: 250–52, and RDC description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1889) description ends , 6: 515, 529–34, 535–36.

5. PJA description begins Robert J. Taylor, Gregg L. Lint, et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (16 vols. to date; Cambridge, Mass., 1977–) description ends , 15: 141, quoting the Boston Patriot, 15 Feb. 1812. For further discussion of JA’s history of the preparation of the commissioners’ response, see PJA description begins Robert J. Taylor, Gregg L. Lint, et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (16 vols. to date; Cambridge, Mass., 1977–) description ends , 15: 140–43, which posits JA’s longstanding differences with RRL, with the French ministry, and with Congress on foreign policy matters as additional reasons to leave the authorship to JJ.

6. The decision to begin drafting their reply to RRL’s dispatches before Laurens returned was dictated by the fact that Barney was scheduled to leave France for the United States on 21 July. Laurens arrived back at Paris that very day. Barney’s departure was, however, delayed until 1 Aug., when he left with Laurens on board. He reached Philadelphia by 9 Sept. carrying dispatches that informed Congress about the Order in Council of 2 July 1783 and the official and private responses to RRL’s letters. See JJ’s private letter to RRL of 19 July 1783, below; PRM description begins E. James Ferguson et al., eds., The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784 (9 vols.; Pittsburgh, Pa., 1973–99) description ends , 8: 389, 394n10, 542–43; and PHL description begins Philip M. Hamer et al., eds., The Papers of Henry Laurens (16 vols.; Columbia, S.C., 1968–2003) description ends , 16: 241, 248.

7. See “The Separate Article” (editorial note) on pp. 162–64.

8. BF to RRL, 22 July 1783, Giunta, Emerging Nation description begins Mary A. Giunta et al., eds., The Emerging Nation: A Documentary History of the Foreign Relations of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, 1780–1789 (3 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1996) description ends , 1: 894–95. For JA’s criticism of BF’s role in the negotiations, and his being informed of the contents of BF’s letter, see PJA description begins Robert J. Taylor, Gregg L. Lint, et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (16 vols. to date; Cambridge, Mass., 1977–) description ends , 15: 321–25.

9. See BF to JJ, 10 Sept., and JJ to BF, 11 Sept., and notes, below.

10. See, for example, Richard Peters to JJ, 19 Jan. 1815, 12 Dec. 1818, both ALS, NNC (EJ: 9574, 9577); JJ to Peters, 25 Jan. 1819, ALS, PHi (EJ: 1165); Timothy Pickering to JJ, 24 Jan. 1810, ALS, NNC (EJ: 9474); and JJ’s replies to Pickering, 7 and 9 Feb. 1810, both ALS, MHi (EJ: 4812, 4813); Peacemakers description begins Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (New York, 1965) description ends , 445–46; and JJUP, 2 description begins Richard B. Morris et al., eds., John Jay, vol. 2, The Winning of the Peace: Unpublished Papers, 1780–1784 (New York, 1980) description ends : 2.

11. See RRL to JJ, 29 Nov. 1783, and 25 Jan. 1784, below.

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    “The Commissioners Defend the Treaty  Editorial Note,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jay/01-03-02-0157. [Original source: The Selected Papers of John Jay, vol. 3, 1782–1784, ed. Elizabeth M. Nuxoll. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, pp. 416–419.]