DOCUMENTS BEARING ON TREATY OP 1783. 225 



freedom of commerce and intercourse between us can afford no advan- 

 tage equivalent to the mischief they will do by keeping up ill-humour 

 and promoting a total alienation. Let you and me, my dear friend, 

 do our best toward advancing and securing that reconciliation. We 

 can do nothing that will in a dying hour afford us more solid sat- 

 isfaction. 



No. 14-2. 1784, February 18: Extract from letter, General Schuyler 



to Mr. Jay. 



Too many, not contented with a peace glorious, and advantageous 

 beyond the expectation of the most sanguine real patriot, and that, 

 too, obtained at a period when the complexion of our national affairs 

 was alarming in the extreme, wish to evade the positive stipulations, 

 few and inconsiderable us they are, in favour of those who adhered 

 to Britain. 



136 No. 143. 1785, March 4- Extract from Report of Mr. Secre- 

 tary John Jay on the letter of Mr. Adams, dated June 22, 

 1784. 



OFFICE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March 4, 1785. 



The Secretary of the United States of America for the Department 

 of Foreign Affairs, to whom was referred a letter of the 22d June, 

 1784, from the honorable John Adams. Esq. reports as his opinion : 



That Congress, by their declaration of the 4th July, 177G, an- 

 nounced the independence of the United States to all the nations of 

 the world, and that it was then as perfect and complete as it now 

 is or ever can be. 



That it would be most prudent, in the opinion of your Secretary, 

 for Congress, in speaking of the treaty of peace, to avoid as much as 

 possible connecting their independence with it, lest such connection, 

 unless exceedingly guarded, might afford matter to argue an admis- 

 sion that their independence was indebted for legal validity to the 

 acknowledgment of it by Great Britain 



[1786: British Statute, 26 Geo. Ill, cap. 26. 

 (See Appendix to British Case, p. 555.)] 



No. 144. 1811, August 21: Extract from Mr. Adams' letter to the 



"Boston Patriot." 



.... I represented to them [the French diplomats, 1779] that 

 France ought to support our claim to a share in it, if it were only 

 to prevent England from commanding a monopoly of it; that our 

 right to it was at least as clear and indisputable as that of England 

 or France; that it was situated in the ocean, which was open and 

 free and common to all nations, to us as much as to any other; that 

 its proximity to our country seemed naturally to give us a right 



