1. JA received another note of this date from Jean de Neufville & Fils (Adams Papers) that wished him well on his imminent return to Leyden and gave a brief progress report on the loan.

2. On 1 March the Russian minister at The Hague, Prince Gallitzin, presented Catherine II’s offer to mediate between the Netherlands and Great Britain. The States General accepted the proposal on 14 March, but Britain refused even to consider a mediated settlement. The British feared that any negotiations would compromise its position vis-à-vis the extension of neutral rights and that Russian efforts to end the Anglo-Dutch conflict would divert Catherine’s attention from her mediation of the Anglo-French war. Russia, however, did not take Britain’s refusal as final and undertook a new initiative at the end of Aug., for which see JA’s letters to the president of Congress of 6 Aug., calendared below, and 13 Dec. (Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Washington, 1889; 6 vols. description ends , 5:43–44). The Gazette de Leyde of 2 March carried a brief notice of Gallitzin’s demarché and on 6 March printed the French text. For an English translation, see the Annual Register for 1781, p. 310–311; but see also JA’s letter of 18 March to the president of Congress, calendared below.