From the Earl Wycombe to John Adams, 1 March 1794

From the Earl Wycombe

London. March 1. 1794.

Dear Sir

I trust you will excuse the liberty I take in introducing to your acquaintance Mr. Talleyrand de Perigord who is preparing to seek an asylum in America.1 As you are no doubt acquainted with his family and with the distinguished part he acted in the Constituent Assembly of France it is unnecessary for me to say more than that he has recieved an order to quit this country in consequence of a power vested in Ministers by the Alien Bill passed last sessions. This bill has been made in a variety of instances subservient to purposes of private pique, and of unmerited persecution; I believe in no one case more clearly so than in that of Mr. de Talleyrand who is required to depart not upon account of any conduct imputed to him here, but at the instigation of a foreign court.

He will I am well convinced meet with a more liberal reception in the United States than he has experienced here with every claim to attention which high birth, uncommon talents, and accomplished manners can bestow. He is accompanied by Mr. Beaumetz likewise a distinguished member of the Constituent Assembly, whom I also beg leave to reccommend to your notice. It is unnecessary for me to say how ready I shall at all times be to recieve your commands on any similar occasion or how truly I am / Dear Sir / Your Obedient & Obliged Humble Servant

Wycombe.

RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Earl of Wycombe / March 1. Ansd / May 3. 1794.”

1. John Henry Petty, Earl Wycombe (1765–1809), wrote on behalf of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), formerly the bishop of Autun, who had served as the French ambassador to Great Britain since 1792. The French diplomat toured North America seeking business opportunities and traversed Maine and western New York before returning to France in 1796. His travel companion was Bon Albert Briois de Beaumez (b. 1759), who briefly served as president of the French National Assembly in 1790 and sought to reform the nation’s criminal law code (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 10:162, 163; Madison, Papers, Congressional Series description begins The Papers of James Madison: Congressional Series, ed. William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, and Robert Allen Rutland, Chicago, 1962–1991; 17 vols. description ends , 15:259; Washington, Papers, Presidential Series description begins The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series, ed. W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Jack D. Warren, Mark A. Mastromarino, Robert F. Haggard, Christine S. Patrick, John C. Pinheiro, David R. Hoth, Jennifer Stertzer and others, Charlottesville, Va., 1987– . description ends , 16:17).

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: From the Earl Wycombe to John Adams, 1 March 1794
Author: Earl Wycombe, the
Recipient: Adams, John
Date: 1 March 1794

Reference

Cite as: “From the Earl Wycombe to John Adams, 1 March 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-21-02-0190. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 21, March 1791–January 1797, ed. Sara Georgini, Sara Martin, R. M. Barlow, Gwen Fries, Amanda M. Norton, and Hobson Woodward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022, pp. 265–266.]