RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “A Son Excellence Mr. Adams M. P.”

In a letter to Robert R. Livingston of 23 June, very similar to this one to JA, Dumas indicated that the exchange had occurred at one o’clock that afternoon (Wharton, Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 6:502). In his unofficial capacity as chargé d’affaires, Dumas wrote to Hendrik Fagel on 5 June to announce that he was ready, in JA’s absence, to exchange the ratifications of the Dutch-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Convention on Recaptures. Fagel replied on 19 June that the exchange would take place on Monday the 23d (PCC, No. 93, II, f. 337, 341; IV, f. 119, 122). Dumas enclosed with his letter of 11 July, below, copies of his 5 June letter to Fagel and Fagel’s 24 June report to the States General on the exchange. On 26 July 1788, Dumas obtained another copy of Fagel’s 24 June 1783 report to the States General and sent it to John Jay enclosed in a letter of the same date. Dumas sought to use the report, which explicitly recognized him as chargé d’affaires, to obtain an official commission as such from the new Congress under the Constitution ( Dipl. Corr., 1783–1789 , 3:620–623).

One set of the treaty and convention ratified by Congress on 23 Jan. can be found in the Adams Papers. No letter from JA requesting that Dumas send JA the Dutch ratifications has been found. This may mean that JA intended to obtain them when he visited the Netherlands in late July. The documents received from Hendrik Fagel, with the two silver boxes, have not been found, but see Miller, Treaties , 2:89.