RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Honorable John Adams Esqr. / Minister Plenipoy. of the United / States at the Court of London —”; endorsed by AA2: “Mr Jay Nov 1st 1786—”

With his 4 Oct. letter (Adams Papers), Jay enclosed an order to John Lamb to return immediately to America, for which see JA’s 30 Nov. letter to Thomas Jefferson, and note 2, below. Jay noted a report that Thomas Barclay had concluded a “Truce” with Morocco, and he commented on New Hampshire’s actions regarding a Shaysite insurrection. Concerning the unrest he wrote that “a Rage for paper Money and too little Decision or perhaps Capacity of Decision in the Construction of our Governments expose us to Inconveniences, for which it is Time to provide Remedies.”

On 13 Oct., Jay reported to Congress on JA’s [30 Nov. 1785] memorial to the Marquis of Carmarthen on the frontier posts (vol. 17:624–625), and Carmarthen’s 28 Feb. 1786 reply, above, with which was enclosed a “State of the Grievances” regarding state laws that prevented British creditors from collecting money owed them by American debtors. In his report, Jay reviewed the British complaints and included the texts of the offending state laws, proclamations, and acts. Jay concluded that the Revolutionary War left “unextinguished” debt that must be paid to uphold the Anglo-American peace treaty. The state legislatures, according to Jay, retained “perfect though limited sovereignty” under the Articles of Confederation, and therefore lawmakers should repeal any acts that blocked the settlement of outstanding debts, so as not to endanger compliance with the terms of an international agreement ratified by Congress. He recommended that JA be “instructed candidly to admit that the 4th and 6th Articles of the treaty have been violated in America, as well as the 7th has on the part of Great Britain.” With regard to the British violation, Jay proposed that JA should estimate and request compensation for the removal of American property and slaves by British forces upon their evacuation from the United States. Jay’s proposal for an Anglo-American convention to recover those losses included an article for the remission of interest, but Jay suspected that “from the general and great impropriety of such interference with private Contracts,” any effort to obtain such a provision by JA would prove “fruitless.” On 16 Oct., Congress appointed a committee to consider Jay’s report and renewed it on 12 Feb. 1787 upon the opening of its new session ( JCC , 31:781–874, 881; 32:42).

It took several months for Congress to fully respond to Jay’s report and issue instructions to JA. On 21 March 1787 it adopted three resolutions. The first stated that the state legislatures could not “of right pass any act or acts for interpreting, explaining or construing a national treaty or any part or clause of it.” The second and third called for the repeal of all such acts and recommended that it be done with a general act stating that all “such acts and parts of acts repugnant” to the Anglo-American peace treaty were repealed (same, 32:124–125). Jay enclosed a copy of the resolutions with his 2 April 1787 letter to JA and recommended that “it might be well to communicate it informally to the Minister. I think it would have a good Effect, and tend to abate the Irritation which long Delays & Silence may have occasioned.” In his reply of 14 May, JA reported that he had followed Jay’s advice and that Carmarthen “appeared to be sincerely and highly pleased, and said that those resolutions did the highest honor to Congress” ( Dipl. Corr., 1783–1789 , 2:684–685, 751). Congress’ next action came on 13 April 1787 when it approved a circular letter from Congress to the states to accompany the 21 March resolutions, but it was not until 20 July that it approved JA’s related instructions, although they had first been proposed by Jay on 23 April ( JCC , 32:176–184, 229–230, 378–379). Jay enclosed the instructions with his 31 July 1787 letter 504 ( Dipl. Corr., 1783–1789 , 2:756–787), which JA acknowledged in his first letter to Jay of 22 Sept. (LbC, APM Reel 112). On 24 Sept. he executed the instructions by presenting Carmarthen with a memorial detailing the actions taken by the states to alleviate British grievances and proposing a that a convention to establish the value of the “Slaves and other American Property” by British forces at their evacuation of the United States and providing compensation for prizes taken after the 1783 armistice (PRO:FO 4, State Papers, vol. 5, f. 525–531).

This led William Ellery, commissioner of the loan office in Rhode Island, to cease issuing indents of interest in Sept. 1786. The Board of Treasury approved Ellery’s decision because Rhode Island’s action entirely defeated the purpose of Congress’ requisitions for funds from the states, and on 30 Oct. Congress adopted a resolution approving of Ellery’s action (Ferguson, Power of the Purse , p. 243–244; JCC , 31:658, 663, 885, 916)

Not found. For the final act in Congress’ long-running effort to obtain adequate financing by convincing the states to grant it the proceeds from an impost, see Jay’s first letter of 4 May, and note 4, above.

On 20 Oct., Congress resolved to enlist 1,340 noncommissioned officers and privates for a term of three years, to be drawn from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia. Ordered to enlist 660 men, Massachusetts had the greatest charge to fill out the “legionary corps” that, with troops already raised, would total 2,040 ( JCC , 31:892–893).

The newspapers have not been found, but in 1786 relations between American settlers and Native Americans were in a state of flux all along the western border of the United States. Jay likely refers to the ill-fated expedition led by George Rogers Clark, launched in September from Kentucky. Intended to protect the settlers at Vincennes and along the Wabash River, it destroyed several Shawnee villages and seized property from French and Spanish merchants. By the date of this letter the expedition had been ended ignominiously by mutinous troops and without achieving its objectives (Thomas P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution, N.Y., 1932, p. 317–318; L. C. Helderman, “The Northwest Expedition of George Rogers Clark, 1786–1787,” MVHR , 25:317–334 [Dec. 1938]).

For Jay’s 27 Oct. letter to Jefferson and its enclosures, see Jefferson, Papers , 10:488–490. The letter to Jefferson, like this one to JA, was carried by Rev. Samuel Provoost rather than going by the French packet because two of the enclosures concerned the Franco-American consular convention. JA forwarded Jay’s letter to Jefferson with his of 30 Nov., below.