To John Adams from John Jay, 12 May 1787
From John Jay
Office for foreign Affairs 12th. May 1787
Dr Sir
I had the Pleasure of writing you a few Lines on the 2d. of last Month, since which I have received and communicated to Congress your Letters of 9th. 24th. and 27th. January1 and 3d. & 24th. February last.—
My Health continues much deranged, and I purpose in a few Days to make an Excursion into the Country for about a fortnight.—
A Motion has lately been made in Congress to remove to Philadelphia, and the Party who support it persevere in pushing it from Day to Day— They are not joined by a single Member from either of the eastern States, and yet there is Reason to apprehend that they will carry their Point. No other Motive for this strange Measure is publicly assigned by them except that Philadelphia is more central than New York.2
Several important Affairs which ought to have been dispatched have given place to this unfortunate Contest, so that I can by this Conveyance send you little of Importance.—
Accept my Thanks for the Book you was so kind as to send me— I have read it with Pleasure and with Profit. I do not however altogether concur with you in Sentiment respecting the Efficiency of our great Council, for national Purposes, whatever Powers more or less maybe given them.3 In my Opinion a Council so constituted will forever prove inadequate to the Objects of its Institution.
With great and sincere Esteem I have the Honor to be / Dr. Sir / Your most obt. & very hble: Servt.
John Jay—4
P.S. A new Edition of your Book is printing in this City & will be published next Week.—5 You will herewith receive the late Newspapers—
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Hoñble John Adams Esqr:.”
1. Vol. 18:535–538, 553–556, 567–568.
2. See Thomas McKean’s 30 April letter, and note 6, above.
3. Jay alluded here to JA’s statement in his that “a single council has been found to answer the purposes of confederacies very well,” which touched on the relation between state sovereignty and congressional power (1:362–364). Jay explored this theme in his contributions to The Federalist, a series of essays written with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to rebut criticism of the U.S. Constitution, printed in 1787 (, 4:572–582).
4. Two days later, Jay wrote to JA (, 2:738), enclosing a copy of a 2 April letter from Daniel Huger (1742–1799), then a South Carolina member of Congress, outlining a constituent’s legal troubles with the Admiralty (). Both letters introduced the bearer, a shipowner named Leigh Masters, whose schooner Minerva carried a large quantity of flour, bread, and wine. Masters was aboard when the Minerva sprang a leak in May 1786 and sought refuge at New Providence, Bahamas. British Navy officials stated that since the Minerva had been repaired and ordered to depart, the subsequent sale of her cargo violated the Navigation Act. The Admiralty condemned the ship in July, and Masters apparently traveled to London to challenge the ruling. There is no indication that JA intervened in Masters’ case. A Tr of selected trial records appears in DNA:RG 40, Reel 3, f. 164–205. However, this particular copy is in the hand of HA, probably made while he was doing research at the Library of Congress in the 1870s and 1880s for his History of the United States.
5. Printer Hugh Gaine advertised the publication and sale of the first volume of JA’s Defence in the New York Independent Journal, 2 June 1787. For the American sale and reception of the first volume, see vol. 18:544–550.