ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES AT LOGGERHEADS

By John Frederick Sackville, Duke of Dorset.

THIS communication, dated March 26, 1785, addressed by the English ambassador in Paris to the American commissioners to the Court of France John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson is of interest in expressing the skepticism of the British government as to the power of the American Congress to uphold a treaty which one or more of the thirteen States might oppose. In May of the year before the American diplomats had been sent to Europe under a general power to make commercial treaties, especially one with England that involved the Newfoundland fisheries. The English skepticism was inspired by the knowledge that the New England States were determined to have their fishing rights protected.

Largely through the efforts of Adams, who had just secured recognition of the United States as an independent nation by the Dutch government, this and other treaties were negotiated.

HAVING communicated to my Court the readiness you expressed in your letter, to me of the 9th of December, to remove to London, for the purpose of treating upon such points as may materially concern the interests, both political and commercial, of Great Britain and America, and having at the same time represented that you declared your- selves to be fully authorized and empowered to negotiate, I have been, in answer thereto, instructed to learn from you, gentlemen, what is the real nature of the powers with which you are invested, whether you are merely commissioned by Congress, or whether you have received separate powers from the respective States. A committee of North American merchants have waited upon his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for foreign affairs, to express how anxiously they wished to be informed upon this subject, repeated experience having taught them in particular, as well as the public in general, how little the authority of Congress could avail in any respect, where the interests of any one individual State was even concerned, and particularly so, where the concerns of that particular State might be supposed to militate against such resolutions as Congress might think proper to adopt.

The apparent determination of the respective States to regulate their own separate interests, renders it absolutely necessary, towards forming a permanent system of commerce, that my Court should be informed how far the Commissioners can be duly authorized to enter into any engagements with Great Britain, which it may not be in the power of any one of the States to render totally fruitless and ineffectual.

OUR FIRST MINISTER TO ENGLAND

By John Adams.

NO record of the foreign relations of the struggling Confederacy of this period, 1785, compares with that contained in the journal and letters of John Adams, first American minister to George III and second President of the United States. This letter, dated from the Bath Hotel, Westminster, June 2, 1785, was written to John Jay, then secretary of foreign affairs. Couched, as it is, in diplomatic language, it does not betray the early misgivings Adams had as to the success of his embarrassing mission.

In fact, the relations between the two countries were still such as to make life in London irksome to one of Adams's temperament, and he soon asked to be recalled. His request was dictated by the belief that the service he was trying to render was of no particular benefit to his country. Nevertheless, he remained at his post until 1788, when he returned to become our first Vice-President.

DURING my interview with the Marquis of Carmarthen, he told me that it was customary for every foreign minister, at his first presentation to the King, to make his Majesty some compliments conformable to the spirit of his letter of credence; and when Sir Clement Cottrell Dormer, the master of ceremonies, came to inform me that he should accompany me to the secretary of state and to Court, he said that every foreign minister whom he had attended to the Queen had always made a harangue to her Majesty, and he understood, though he had not been present, that they always harangued the King.

On Tuesday evening, the Baron de Lynden called upon me, and said he came from the Baron de Nolken, and they had been conversing upon the singular situation I was in, and they agreed in opinion that it was indispensable that I should make a speech, and that that speech should be as complimentary as possible. All this was conformable to the advice lately given by the Count de Vergennes to Mr. Jefferson; so that, finding it was a custom established at both these great Courts, and that this Court and the foreign ministers expected it, I thought I could not avoid it, although my first thought and inclination had been to deliver my credentials silently and retire.

At one, on Wednesday, the master of ceremonies called at my house, and went with me to the secretary of state's office, in Cleveland Row, where the Marquis of Carmarthen received me, and introduced me to his under secretary, Mr. Fraser, who has been, as his Lordship told me, uninterruptedly in that office, through all the changes in administration for thirty years, having first been appointed by the Earl of Holderness. After a short conversation upon the subject of importing my effects from Holland and France free of duty, which Mr. Fraser himself introduced, Lord Carmarthen invited me to go with him in his coach to Court.

When we arrived in the antechamber, the oeil de boeuf of St. James's, the master of the ceremonies met me and attended me, while the secretary of state went to take the commands of the King. While I stood in this place, where it seems all ministers stand upon such occasions, always attended by the master of ceremonies, the room very full of ministers of state, lords and bishops, and all sorts of courtiers, as well as the next room, which is the King's bedchamber, you may well suppose I was the focus of all eyes. I was relieved, however, from the embarrassment of it by the Swedish and Dutch ministers, who came to me, and entertained me in a very agreeable conversation during the whole time. Some other gentlemen, whom I had seen before, came to make their compliments too, until the Marquis of Carmarthen returned and desired me to go with him to his Majesty. I went with his Lordship through the levee room into the King's closet. The door was shut. and I was left with his Majesty and the secretary of state alone. I made the three reverences, one at the door, another about half way, and a third before the presence, according to the usage established at this and all the northern Courts of Europe, and then addressed myself to his Majesty in the following words:-