MS (Adams Papers).

On 29 Oct., JA and JQA moved into apartments in London maintained by John Stockdale, where Henry Laurens had resided earlier in the year (JA, D&A , 3:149; JQA, Diary , 1:197). Stockdale, a London bookseller and printer, published JA’s A Translation of the Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe . . . into Common Sense and Intelligible English in 1781. Later, in 1784, he would publish JA’s History of the Dispute with America, an abridged version of JA’s Novanglus letters taken from John Almon’s Remembrancer for 1775; and, in 1787–1788, JA’s three-volume Defence of the Const. (vol. 2:224; vol. 11:ix; vol. 14:266–267; JA, Defence of the Const. , 2:title page).

David Garrick, Isabella; or, The Fatal Marriage, London, 1757. JQA’s Diary indicates that he, and probably JA, attended the play at the Drury Lane Theatre on 31 Oct. 1783 (JQA, Diary , 1:198). Sarah Siddons played Isabella, and in a 4 Nov. letter to Peter Jay Munro (NNMus), JQA wrote that “Friday evening, I went . . . to see that wonderful, wonderful, wonder of wonders, Mrs: Siddons. The most capital performer upon the Stage; not only of Europe, at present, but that ever was seen. . . . She out Garrick’s Garrick, Sir, cent per cent. she play’d that evening Isabella in the Fatal marriage: you probably know nothing of this piece: it is the deepest Tragedy I ever saw or read: and I must confess I never saw any player, so possessed of the pathetic, as this said Mrs: Siddons. all the audience were in Tears.” Neither this nor the other publications indicated at notes 3 and 5 are in JA’s library at MB. This may mean that when the Adamses left London for the Netherlands they left their books with John Stockdale, intending to retrieve them later, for which see AFC , 5:329–330, 338.

Presumably the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, which JQA visited on 7 Nov. (JQA, Diary , 1:200–201).

This may be the bookplate described by Henry Adams in the Catalogue of JQA’s Books , p. 138–139. For more on the bookplate, see Descriptive List of Illustrations, No. 4, above. Why a second entry for the engraving of a plate of arms was included in the account and then crossed out, below, is not known.

Probably Joseph Warton’s The Works of Virgil, in Latin and English, 4 vols., London, 1753.

Subtraction is incorrect; £3.14.3 minus £1.1.0 is £2.13.3 rather than £2.13.0.

FC in JQA’s hand (Adams Papers); endorsed in JA’s hand: “Copy of / Instructions 29. Oct. 1783.”

JA received these instructions as an enclosure to the president of Congress’ 1 Nov. letter to the commissioners, below, at London on 5 December. He had JQA copy them and then sent the original instructions and the letter on to Benjamin Franklin at Passy (to Franklin, 5 Dec.; to John Jay, 7 Dec., both below).

JA likely saw this instruction and the following one as proceeding from, and expanding on, Congress’ resolution of 1 May authorizing the peace commissioners to negotiate an Anglo-American commercial agreement ( JCC , 24:320–321). In his 5 Dec. letter to Franklin, below, JA indicated his assumption that a commission to that purpose likely was included with a separate packet directed to Franklin. As Franklin indicated in his reply of 10 Dec., below, such was not the case, and in the absence of a commission specifically granting the commissioners plenipotentiary powers to negotiate commercial treaties with Britain and other European nations, the instructions could have no substantive effect beyond encouraging the commissioners to solicit proposals for treaties that might be negotiated when a commission arrived. Congress issued no such commission until 7 May 1784 ( JCC , 26:357–362), but see note 3.

The principal problem with Congress’ directions for negotiating treaties with European nations, which became evident when the negotiation of a Prussian-American treaty began in March 1784, was in the final sentence of the second instruction. As Elbridge Gerry noted in his letter of 14 Jan. 1784, below, the commissioners were permitted to negotiate, but they could not sign a treaty. The unsigned draft agreement had to be sent to Congress for consideration and likely modification. This would lengthen the negotiation process and likely make the conclusion of any treaties impossible. On 22 Dec. 1783 a committee composed of Gerry, Thomas Jefferson, and Hugh Williamson presented a report proposing to supplement and amplify the instructions of 29 October. Among the suggested changes was the proviso “that a Commission be issued to Mr Adams, Mr Franklin, and Mr Jefferson giving powers to them, or the greater part of them to make and receive propositions for such treaties of amity and commerce, and to negotiate and sign the same, transmitting them to Congress for their final ratification.” This provision was included in the commission voted on 7 May 1784 ( JCC , 25:821–825; 26:362). For Gerry’s account of the final resolution of the issue, see his 16 June 1784 letter to JA, Smith, Letters of Delegates , 21:685–687.

This instruction proceeded from Franklin’s letter of 22 July 1783 to Robert R. Livingston in which he referred to his efforts to resolve the dispute with Denmark over prizes taken by the frigate Alliance in the course of the 1779 Bonhomme Richard expedition and sent to Bergen, Norway (then under Danish rule). Bowing to British pressure, Denmark returned the vessels—Betsy, Union, and 334 Charming Polly—to Britain, thus depriving the Alliance’s crew of any prize money. In the years since, Franklin had pressed the American case, arguing that Denmark had acted in violation of the law of nations. He had refused a Danish offer of £10,000 in compensation, believing that the prizes were worth at least £50,000. Nothing came of this effort to resolve the issue nor of another in 1787, in the course of which John Paul Jones was sent on a mission to Copenhagen to negotiate directly with the Danish government. The dispute remained unresolved until the mid-nineteenth century (vol. 9:51; Wharton, Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 6:583–584; Morison, John Paul Jones , p. 354–358).

This instruction was also the product of Franklin’s 22 July 1783 letter to Livingston. There he referred to Thomas Barclay’s examination of the European accounts and the unsettled nature of those arising from the 1779 Bonhomme Richard expedition. In fact, except for the frigate Alliance, the French government supplied the vessels and the financing for the undertaking through its agent, Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont. In 1783 the final unresolved issue was the distribution of prize money, which Chaumont had never paid out, claiming that he was still owed for fitting out the expedition. This led Congress on 1 Nov. to appoint John Paul Jones its agent to solicit, under Franklin’s direction, “for payment and satisfaction to the officers and crews for all prizes taken in Europe under his command.” Jones took three years to resolve the issue to his satisfaction, and in Oct. 1787, Congress, after considering the matter at length, put its final seal on Jones’ settlement (same, p. 182–199, 337–341; Wharton, Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 6:585; JCC , 25:787; 32:383–384; 33:556–569, 645–646, 659–664).

For Livingston’s reference to the Armed Neutrality as a “dead letter,” and for the origins of this instruction in a resolution by Congress on 12 June 1783, see vol. 14:512–514; and for JA’s view of the matter, see his 7 July letter to Livingston, and note 3, above.

This question had been raised first in Livingston’s letter to the commissioners of 21 April (vol. 14:437). For the commissioners’ position on the issue, see their letter to Livingston of 18 July, above. No such explanation was obtained.

The eighth and ninth instructions proceeded from Jay’s letters of 1 June and 20 July (Wharton, Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 6:464–465, 576). In the first he asked that William Carmichael, his secretary, be ordered to bring the accounts from Madrid to Paris so that Jay and Carmichael could settle the accounts with Barclay. In the second, he noted the poor state of his health and his desire to try “the waters of Bath for a pain in my breast.”