MS not found. Printed from J. J. Boudinot, ed., The Life of Elias Boudinot, 1:410–413; internal address: “To The Honble Commissioners”; notation: “Commissioners / Private.”

This letter points out the problem facing Congress and the commissioners in the absence of a secretary for foreign affairs, which left no one with the authority—Boudinot writes “merely as an individual” and does not actually reply to any letters received—to answer the commissioners’ letters or issue instructions. Counting Boudinot’s letter, only three letters had been addressed to the commissioners since 1 June. Since Boudinot’s last letter, of 15 July, however, Congress’ dispatch book indicates that it had received 42 letters: two from the commissioners as a group, 24 from JA, four from Benjamin Franklin, six from John Jay, and six from Henry Laurens (PCC, No. 185, III, f. 71–85).

For two weeks in mid-October, Congress fiercely debated prospective temporary and permanent residences for the federal government. Commencing the discussion on 6 Oct., Congress resolved the following day that buildings should be erected on the banks of the Delaware, near the falls, as a permanent meeting site. Bitter opposition from southern delegates led Congress to reconsider this decision, and the body eventually resolved on 21 Oct. to establish a second “federal town” on the banks of the Potomac. Until the government buildings on the Delaware and Potomac were completed, Congress agreed to meet alternately at Trenton and Annapolis ( JCC , 25:646–660, 711–714; Smith, Letters of Delegates , 21:88, 99).

Asserting a congressional power established under the Articles of Confederation, Congress issued a proclamation on 22 Sept. that affirmed the United States government’s (as opposed to the individual states’) exclusive control over the purchasing or receiving of land from Indian nations. Another proclamation, approved in Congress on 25 Sept., announced the ratification of a treaty of amity and commerce between Sweden and the United States. Two additional acts, both dated 18 Oct., appeared in American newspapers prior to 27 October. One discharged soldiers of the army as of 3 Nov., thanking them for their service; the other named the second Thursday of December a day of public thanksgiving (Pennsylvania Gazette, 15 Oct.; Pennsylvania Packet, 23, 25 Oct.).

Rather than “Genl Waldenson” the reference should be to “Genl Haldimand.” On 20 July, Gen. Friedrich von Steuben left West Point to meet at Sorel, Quebec, with Gen. Frederic Haldimand, British commander-in-chief in Canada, regarding the transfer of British-occupied frontier posts in U.S. territories to American control. Steuben reported to George Washington that Haldimand refused to make arrangements for evacuation, denying him the right even to visit the posts. A similar mission undertaken by Lt. Col. William Hull in the summer of 1784 was also unsuccessful, and the posts in question remained in British hands for another thirteen years (John McAuley Palmer, General Von Steuben, New Haven, Conn., 1937, p. 312–314; Smith, Letters of Delegates , 20:643–645; Washington, Papers, Confederation Series , 2:10–11). On Haldimand, see also vol. 3:33.

Pieter Johan van Berckel, minister plenipotentiary from the Netherlands, informed the president of Congress of his arrival in the United States in a letter of 19 Oct., to which Boudinot replied on 24 October. Boudinot presented Van Berckel’s message, as well as the letter of credence enclosed in it, to Congress on 25 Oct. (Wharton, Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 6:713–714). As Boudinot notes in the paragraph dated 1 Nov., Congress formally received Van Berckel on 31 Oct., at which time the minister addressed the delegates. Citing the Netherlands’ support of the American struggle for independence, Van Berckel congratulated Congress on the revolution’s success and pledged to nurture the commercial relationship between the two nations. Boudinot’s answer similarly emphasized the history of friendship between the Americans and Dutch, pointing specifically to the treaty of amity and commerce signed the year before ( JCC , 25:780–786).

Maj. Gen. Robert Howe, directed by Washington in June 1783 to suppress the mutiny of Pennsylvania soldiers that drove Congress out of Philadelphia, subsequently held courts-martial at a military camp 328outside the city to prosecute participants in the uprising. The court convicted two sergeants of the 3d Pennsylvania Regiment, Christian Nagle and John Morrison, sentencing them to death; four additional soldiers were to receive corporal punishment. Congress resolved on 13 Sept. to grant all of the convicted soldiers a full pardon. Congress justified its decision by arguing, “Whereas the said prisoners appear not to have been principals in the said mutiny, and no lives having been lost, nor any destruction of property committed . . . the United States in Congress assembled, have thought fit to pardon and remit.” Boudinot notified Howe of the resolution in a letter written later that day, leaving it up to him when to inform the soldiers of Congress’ intervention on their behalf. Howe waited until minutes before the two sergeants’ scheduled execution on 22 Sept. to issue the pardon. A local newspaper reported that “the two unhappy men received this most agreeable news at the awful moment when they expected to be summoned into eternity” (president of Congress to the commissioners, 15 July, above; JCC , 25:565–567; Smith, Letters of Delegates , 20:666–667; Pennsylvania Packet, 27 Sept.).

News of the definitive peace treaty reached Boston first, conveyed by passengers in the ship Robin-Hood, Capt. Smith, which arrived at Cape Ann on 22 October. The Boston Evening Post of 25 Oct. reported that the gentlemen on board pronounced “that the DEFINITIVE TREATY WAS ABSOLUTELY SIGNED ON THE SECOND DAY OF SEPTEMBER LAST; but that it did not come in the Ship.” When the letters and papers on the vessel became available, a letter written in London on 6 Sept. began to appear in American newspapers, claiming “The Definitive Treaty with the United States of America was also signed at Paris the third instant, by David Hartley, Esq his Majesty’s Plenipotentiary, and the Plenipotentiaries of those States” (see, for example, the Boston Independent Ledger, 27 Oct., and the Pennsylvania Packet, 6 Nov.). Word of the treaty first appeared in the Pennsylvania press on 1 Nov., after Col. Matthias Ogden arrived in New York from London to confirm the news. The Pennsylvania Packet of that date reported, “in last night’s New-York stage came passenger the reverend Mr. Rogers, from that city, which he left on Thursday afternoon. He brings us the very important and agreeable intelligence of the definitive treaty of peace being signed at Paris on the third of September last. The account was brought to New-York from Boston . . . And we have the pleasure of mentioning another channel by which this news is certified;—just as our informant came away, the ship Harford, captain Folger, arrived at New-York in 30 days from London; in her came passenger, colonel Ogden, who confirms the happy tidings beyond a doubt.”