Dupl (NHi:Gilder Lehrman Coll., on deposit); internal address: “His Excellency John Jay Esqr / Secretary of State for the / Department of foreign Affairs.” RC, encoded and decoded text (PCC, No. 84, V, f. 469–484). LbC’s in the hands of JA and WSS, respectively (Adams Papers); APM Reels 107, 111. For JA’s drafting and dispatch of this letter to America, see note 2.

In WSS’s hand; for his insertion of this word, see note 2.

On 1 June JA presented his letter of credence to George III and thereby formally began his mission as the first U.S. minister to the Court of St. James. The following day the London Morning Post and Daily Advertiser and other papers reported matter-of-factly that “yesterday J. Adams, Esq. (from America) was presented to his Majesty at the Levee, by the Marquis of Carmarthen.” But the London Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser of 8 June probably better captured the popular view when it observed in amazement “an Ambassador from America!—Good Heavens, what a sound.”

If the concept of a U.S. minister resident in London was difficult for the British public to accept, it was no less unsettling for JA and George III. In his account of the 1 June audience JA notes that both men were “much affected.” Indeed, later newspaper reports indicated, perhaps apocryphally, that “Mr. Adams, the American Ambassador, was so embarrassed at his first audience, as not to pronounce the compliment prescribed by etiquette. The great person before whom he stood, very good-naturedly passed by the omission, and told him, that though it could not be a pleasing circumstance to receive an embassy from those who were once his subjects, yet as the right was insured to them by treaty, he, Mr. Adams, might depend upon being treated with every mark of regard and protection” (London Chronicle, 9–11 June). These and other reports concerning JA’s audience with George III were reprinted in America in, for example, the 18 Aug. Boston Independent Chronicle; see also AA’s comments on newspaper coverage of JA’s arrival in Britain in her 6 June letter to Thomas Jefferson ( AFC , 6:171–172).

Clearly the audience was an intense en counter. Two years earlier George III wrote to Charles James Fox that an accredited minister from the United States would never “be agreeable to Me” (vol. 15:214). The king’s opinion likely had not changed drastically by 1785, and to have before him a former subject and rebel leader who had signed the Declaration of Independence and the Anglo-American peace treaty must have been disconcerting, an unwelcome reminder of his failed effort to retain the American colonies. But however taxing the encounter with JA was for George III, he was performing a routine task, that of receiving a new minister, and one that he had undertaken countless times during his reign. For JA the stakes were much higher.

The significance of JA’s audience with George III on 1 June and that with Queen Charlotte on 9 June is self-evident, as is also the case with his letters to Jay of 2 and 10 June describing the events. The way in which JA drafted those accounts and his decisions regarding their dispatch to America indicate his state of mind as he began his mission to Great Britain, but they also have influenced the editors’ decisions regarding the text of those letters to be printed in this volume.

As he often did with very important letters, JA drafted both of his dispatches to Jay in his Letterbook (APM Reel 107). From the emendations he made in the course of drafting the letters JA was clearly concerned over how the report of his exchanges with George III and Charlotte would be taken when read by members of Congress (see, for example, note 18, below). His apprehensions likely resulted from Elbridge Gerry’s and Samuel Osgood’s warnings that he should be less candid in letters that might be read in Congress, as well as from the criticism leveled at him during Congress’ deliberations over the choice of a minister to Great Britain.

Upon completing each of his drafts, JA wrote out a fair copy and signed it. Those copies, despite their designation as duplicates, are the source of the text for the 2 and 10 June letters to Jay. The editors believe that these are the copies that JA intended to send to Jay, probably as soon as the second letter was completed. At some point, however, probably on or about 10 June, he reconsidered and decided that both letters should be encoded because “of the Delicacy of the Subject” (to Gerry, 6 July, below). Using the nomenclator code that Jay sent JA with his 13 April letter, above, WSS then undertook the laborious task. This resulted in the dispatch of the letters to America being considerably delayed. The encoded account of the audience with George III was not sent off until 20 June, and then it was as an enclosure in WSS’s letter to Jay of that date (to Carmarthen, 20 June, note 1, below). The description of the audience with Charlotte was enclosed with JA’s letter to Jay of 26 June (note 1, below). Marks on both of the fair, signed copies indicate that WSS used them when he prepared the encoded copies. WSS also made LbC’s from the two fair, signed copies that appear between letters dated 20 and 26 June, indicating that they were done at or near the time that the encoded copies were sent off (LbC’s, APM Reel 111). For Jay’s comment on JA’s conduct, upon receiving this letter in late Aug., see note 38, below. For more on the encoded letter, see Descriptive List of Illustrations, Nos. 4 and 5, above.

By early July, JA’s apprehensions over the effect on members of Congress or others of his exchanges with the king and queen had dissipated. He wrote to Gerry on 6 July, below, that his exchanges with George III and Charlotte had “become generally known” so that the caution that led him to encode the accounts sent to Jay was no longer warranted. He, therefore, enclosed the fair, signed copies of his letters to Jay, and it was presumably then that WSS inserted the word “Duplicate” in the upper left corner of each letter’s first page.

In his LbC, JA wrote, “Letter of Credence.” The references here and below are to the Letterbook (APM Reel 107) in which JA drafted his letter to Jay.

For JA’s “Harrangue” at his presentation to Charlotte, see his 10 June letter to Jay, below.

In his LbC, JA wrote, “conformable.”

JA received advice from the Baron Lynden van Blitterswyck and the Baron von Nolcken, Dutch minister and Swedish envoy to Great Britain, respectively, and, as JA indicates in the following paragraph, they were present while JA waited to be shown into the “King’s Closet.” For earlier references to the Comte de Vergennes’ advice to Jefferson as well as the etiquette of the British and French courts, see the second of JA’s 27 May letters to Jefferson, above.

For William Fraser, see JA’s letter 18 July letter to Fraser, below. He was appointed by Robert D’Arcy, 4th Earl of Holdernesse, who left office in 1761 ( DNB ).

In his LbC, JA wrote, “perhaps half an Hours.”

The previous three words do not appear in JA’s LbC.

A reception room at Versailles lighted by circular windows, or oeils-de-boeuf.

In his LbC, JA wrote, “Lords” rather than “Ministers of State.”

In his LbC, JA wrote, “three profound Bows.”

In the Adams Papers at [1 June 1785] is a FC of JA’s address to George III and the king’s response that likely were copied from JA’s LbC. There are, however, differences from the versions in both the Letterbook and this letter which are indicated in notes 14, 16. For JA’s probable use of this FC, and another recounting his exchange with Charlotte, see Jefferson’s first letter of 24 Sept., and note 1, below.

In his FC, JA wrote, “public” before “Minister.”

In his LbC, JA wrote, “America” rather than “United States.”

In his FC, JA wrote, “Let me beg your Majestys Permission.”

In JA’s LbC, this sentence reads, “The King listened to every Word I Said, with Dignity however but with a most apparent Emotion.”

JA’s account of his address to George III in his Letterbook and in the letter itself are virtually identical, and there are no insertions or deletions in the LbC. The same is not true of his account of George III’s response. In the Letterbook there is evidence of substantial editing, with numerous deletions and interlineations of text. This may be due to JA’s determination to report George III’s words accurately, but it may also reflect a concern over the reception of the king’s 144comments in the United States. It seems useful therefore to include the text of George III’s response as JA originally drafted it, without the changes that he later made and which are indicated in notes 19–22.

“Sir—

“The Circumstances of this Audience are so extraordinary, and the Language you have now held, is so extreamly proper, and the Feelings you have discovered so justly adapted that I must Say, that I not only receive with Pleasure the assurances of the Friendly Dispositions of the United States, but that I rejoice that the Choice has fallen upon you to be their Minister. I wish you Sir to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late Contest, but what I thought my self indispensibly bound to do by the Duty which I owed to my People. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the Seperation but the Moment I see such sentiments and Language as yours prevail and a disposition to give this country the Preference, that moment I shall say let the circumstances of Language Religion, and Blood have their natural and full operation.”

But there is a third version of George III’s response to JA derived from the account given by Carmarthen to John Temple on the day following JA’s audience. Temple apparently related Carmarthen’s version to his wife, Elizabeth Bowdoin Temple, who included it in a letter to her father, James Bowdoin, or her mother, Elizabeth Erving Bowdoin. At least that was Royall Tyler’s report in his letter to AA of [post 7 Oct.] in which he indicated that he had been at a dinner where James Bowdoin communicated the extract from his daughter’s letter ( AFC , 6:418).

The extract formed the basis for the accounts of JA’s audience published in the 26 Sept. issues of the Boston Gazette and the Boston Independent Ledger, and it is from the former that the account printed here is taken. It was apparently the first account of JA’s audience published in America, for Tyler informed AA that “Mr. Adams’s private Audience is a matter of much speculation. Congress have not Published an official Account, and the Members are not very Communicative as to this Event. I do not mean that they are peculiarly reserved in this Instance. But it is held Indelicate to Inquire of a member of Congress concerning any official Communications which they do not Chuse to Insert in the Publick Papers.” For an additional comment on this published account, see James Sullivan’s letter of 10 Oct., below.

“Mr. [Temple] accompanied Mr. Adams to the King’s levee, after the levee was over, Mr. Adams according to etiquette, was introduced to the King’s closet, where, (as is usual for foreign ministers) he made a speech to his majesty, in performing which he was somewhat affected, and when he had finished the King said,

“‘Sir,

“‘The whole of this business is so extraordinary, that the feelings you discover upon the occasion, appear to me to be just and proper. I wish, sir, to be clearly understood, before I reply to the obliging sentiments you have expressed in behalf of the United States of America. I am, you may well suppose sir, the last person in England, that consented to the dismemberment of the Empire, by the Independance of the new States; and while the war was continued, I thought it due to my subjects to prosecute that war to the utmost; but sir, I have consented to their independence, and it is ratified by Treaty, and I now receive you as their Minister Plenipotentary; and every attention, respect and protection granted to other Plenipotentiaries, you shall receive at this court— And sir, as I was the last person that consented to the Independence of the said United States, so, I will be the last person to disturb, or in any manner infringe, upon their Sovereign Independant Rights— And I hope and trust, that from blood, religion, manners, habits of intercourse, and almost every other consideration, that the two nations will continue for ages in friendship and confidence with each other.’

“Lord Carmarthen, Secretary of State, (who was the only minister in the closet, when Mr. Adams made his speech, and received the foregoing answer) repeated it to Mr. [Temple] the day after; and which, to my opinion; for its manliness and propriety, deserves to be written in letters of gold—he was afterwards presented to the Queen, to whom he made a speech, (as is customary) She politely thanked him for his friendly expressions towards her and her family, and was very happy to see him in England. Thus far I have given you the speech as near as Mr. [Temple] could recollect, thinking it would be agreeable to you.”

In the LbC, the preceding three words were interlined to replace “rejoice that.”

In the LbC, the following passage from “but” through “Power” was interlined and marked for insertion at this point.

In the LbC, JA wrote, “People.”

In the LbC, JA interlined the passage, “be the first to meet the Frdship of U.S.” and marked it for insertion at this point. But essentially the same words are included in the interlineation mentioned in note 20, so it may be that this passage was written first and then discarded when the inclusion of the earlier insertion made it redundant.

In the LbC, the following three words were interlined and marked for insertion at this point.

At this point in the LbC, JA deleted, “of English Words.”

At this point in the LbC, JA deleted, “and proper.”

At this point in the LbC, JA deleted, “a good deal.”

At this point in the LbC, JA wrote, “I confess.”

At this point the LbC reads, “cool and attentive, that I.”

In the LbC, this word was interlined for insertion at this point.

In the LbC, “he” was interlined to replace “his Majesty.”

In the LbC, the following two words do not appear.

In the LbC, the following two words were interlined for insertion at this point.

In the LbC, the following passage reads, “his Secretary of State Lord Carmarthen who alone was present.”

In the LbC, the following sentence be gins with the word “But.”

JA made substantial changes to the remainder of this paragraph both to his draft and to the text when he copied it from the Letterbook. From this point the remainder of this paragraph in the LbC reads as follows: “I was Surprized at this, because I thought it, not of a Peice with what he had Said before, that is to say I thought it an Indiscretion and a Descent from his Dignity. I was a little Embarrassed, but upon the whole I thought it indispensable upon that Occasion to be as frank as he was, and I assumed threw off as much of my Gravity as I could and assumed as gay an air as was decent and Said ‘That opinion, Sir, is not mistaken, for I must be permitted to own avow to your Majesty that I have no Attachments but to my own native Country.—[’] The King replied as quick as lightning, ‘An honest Man will never have any other.—’”

To this point in the LbC, this sentence reads, “I may possibly have reason to expect from it, that my personal Ease Residence here may not be so disagreable painfull.”

In the LbC, “Silence” was preceded by “probably.”

Jay acknowledged this letter on 26 Aug. (Adams Papers), indicating that he had that day laid it and two others, dated 6 and 17 June, before Congress. Regarding JA’s first efforts as minister, Jay wrote that “you have been in a Situation that required much Circumspection— I think you have acquitted yourself in a Manner that does you Honor.” For more on the audiences with George III and Charlotte, see Descriptive List of Illustrations, Nos. 2 and 3, above.