Papers of John Adams, volume 13
1782-08-28
I recd in due Time your Favour of the 13. The inclosed Account of 13f.14s. I return with my Request that you would be So good as to pay and charge it to my private Acct with your Society, which I will pay when I come to Amsterdam. Inclosed also is another little Account of f.7.16s due to a Copper Smith, which I pray you to pay and charge it in the Same manner. Inclosed also is a third Account for 40 f.1 which you will also be so good as to pay and charge it in the Same manner. You will be so good as to take Receipts upon all these Accounts.
The other Matter respecting the Refracteries shall be attended to. I have endeavoured to procure all the Attention to it, which I could and I believe it will be stipulated that it shall be regulated by the magistrates in the most equitable manner.2
JA wrote two additional letters to the Staphorsts on this date, both LbC, Adams Papers. The first requested that the firm transmit a letter from Tristram Dalton to William Armstrong that Dalton had enclosed in his to JA of 25 May, above, and if he could be found, provide him with assistance. The letter is canceled and likely was not sent, perhaps because JA had received Dalton's letter of 19 July, above, indicating that Armstrong had escaped. The second letter requested that the firm provide assistance to Silas Talbot and Josiah Haynes, who were imprisoned at Plymouth's Mill Prison.
This, in fact, was the way in which the treaty finally dealt with this question of refraction. See the revised Art. 30 in JA's draft and Art. 28 in the final version of the treaty signed on 8 Oct. (The Negotiation of the Dutch-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce, 22 Aug. – 8 Oct., Nos. II, III, and IX, above).