RC (Adams Papers).

No reply by JA to this letter has been found and neither newspaper has been identified.

This letter is dated 12 March, but the only debate matching Jenings’ description occurred on the 8th. That day marked the climax of the contest between George III and William Pitt on the one side and Charles James Fox on the other over royal prerogative versus parliamentary supremacy. Fox offered a remonstrance to George III over the king’s refusal to remove an administration—Pitt’s—“which does not enjoy the confidence of this House.” Fox’s victory by one vote shows the steady decline of his forces since early January when he could command a 39-vote majority in the Commons, and it foretold the outcome of the soon to be contested general election. Jenings wrote the word “One” in letters considerably larger than the rest of the text, presumably to emphasize Fox’s predicament ( Parliamentary Hist. , 24:733–744; Cannon, Fox-North Coalition , p. 164–165, 201–205, 223–224).

Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, was Pitt’s home secretary. With a letter to Benjamin Franklin of 28 Feb., Henry Laurens enclosed Benjamin Vaughan’s account of proposals made by Lord Sydney to a meeting of West Indian merchants on 27 February. Sydney suggested that only ships of eighty tons or less be admitted to the trade, that exports to America must equal imports from America, and that the trade would be confined to one port on each island except for three that would be permitted on Jamaica. The proposals were justified as being “designed with a View to avoid the Jealousy attending the carrying Trade from the West Indies to Europe being broken in upon by the Americans.” Sydney’s audience was critical of his proposals, and Laurens thought them foolish ( DNB ; Laurens, Papers , 16:400–401).