Papers of John Adams, volume 16
Vous avez desiré, Monsieur, d’être instruit des marchandises & productions qui pourroient faire l’objet d’un négoce réciproque entre les Etats de Sa Majesté Prussienne & ceux des Etats-Unis de l’Amérique.1 Je suis trop flatté d’établir ces nouvelles liaisons de commerce de concert avec vous, pour ne pas m’empresser à vous communiquer les notions que j’ai recueillies, soit d’après les renseignemens que ma cour m’a accordés précédemment, ou celles qui pourront m’être parvenues par d’autres canaux. Le tableau que je vais mettre sous vos yeux sera cependant très succinct. En me bornant aux articles les plus essentiels, je vous offre, Monsieur, Sous les éclaircissemens que vous pourrez desirer, & qui seront peut-être nécessaires, quand la négociation dont nous sommes chargés aura pris quelque consistence.
Importation dans les Etats de Sa Majesté Prussienne.
a/ Tabac de Virginie
b/ Ris.
c/ Indigo.
d/ Huile de baleine.
Exportation des Etats du Roi pour les possessions des Etats-Unis de l’Amérique
a/ Toiles de Silésie d’un débit général dans tout le Continent de l’Amérique, autant qu’aux Indes Occidentales.
b/ Chanvre de Prusse, qui est un des meilleurs connus.
c/ Porcelaine de Berlin, d’un travail plus fini que celle de Saxe, & moins chère.
d/ Quelques productions de l’industrie Prussienne, telles que les quincailleries du Comté de la Marck, qui jusqu’ici ont passé, aussi bien que les toiles de Silésie, par les mains des Anglois, & ont par conséquent augmenté de prix à leur entrée en Amérique.
e/ Des draps de toute espèce, des camelots & autres marchandises de ce genre.
98J’ajouterai, Monsieur, que le Roi abandonne au Congrès le choix de cet ou autre port de Ses Etats pour le commerce d’échange, ou pour le dépôt de marchandises, qui seroit le plus de sa convenance. Emden, situé vers la mer du Nord, ouvre la porte au négoce avec la partie Occidentale de l’Allemagne; Stettin, place maritime sur les côtes de la Baltique, avec l’intérieur de cette vaste Région, par le moyen de l’Oder.2 Enfin les ports des deux Prusses établissent un commerce suivi avec le Royaume de Pologne, où les productions de la pêche américaine, & en particulier la morue, pourront être débitées avec le plus grand avantage.
J’ai l’honneur d’être avec la considération la plus distinguée, / Monsieur, / Vôtre très humble et très obéissant Serviteur
Le Sieur Christian Ravenhorst, Pasteur Luthérien à Eben Ezer en Géorgie, y est décédé depuis plusieurs annees, et sa veuve Anne Barbarine Krafftin est morte dans le même endroit le 1r. Juillet 1779.3 Par un testament réciproque érigé entre eux, le mari a prélégué la somme de 300 £ Stg. à ses trois soeurs établies dans les Etats de Sa Majesté Prussienne, et la femme a stipulé les mêmes avantages en faveur de sa famille domiciliée à Ravensburg. Le reste de la succession devoit écheoir en portions égales aux héritiers de l’un et l’autre Testateur, déduction faite de deux legs, chacun de 40 £. Stg. établis en faveur des missions religieuses de l’Inde, et de la maison des Orphelins à Halle. Les Srs. Joseph Schubtrin et Jacob Waldhauer à Eben Ezer, ont été nommés Exécuteurs testamentaires, et en cette qualité ils se sont mis en possession de tout l’héritage, ainsi qu’il paroît par une lettre qu’ils ont écrite en date du 4. Mai 1780. à la femme Marie Hoppin, demeurant à Daber en Poméranie, et l’une des soeurs du défunt Ravenhorst. D’après leur propre aveu, le mobilier de la succession avoit été taxé à 487. £. 19. sh; il s’étoit trouvé 400 £. en dettes actives, dont le recouvrement avoit été commis aux gens de loi. Il existoit d’ailleurs en immeubles 1300. arpens4 de terre, administrés provisionnellement par les Exécuteurs testamentaires. Pendant les troubles de la guerre Américaine les héritiers n’ont reçu aucune nouvelle de l’arrangement de la
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succession; mais en dernier lieu le Professeur Freylinghausen, l’un des Directeurs de la maison des Orphelins à Halle, vient d’être informé par une lettre de Pensilvanie, que l’un des Exécuteurs, le Sr. Schubtrin, étoit décédé dans l’intervalle, et que le second, le Sr. Waldhauer, avoit été dépouillé par une bande de brigands de tout l’argent comptant et de tous les effets provenants de l’héritage confié à sa direction. En supposant que cet événement fût constaté par des preuves légales, les justes prétentions des héritiers sur les dettes actives subsisteroient cependant en leur entier, puisque le recouvrement n’en paroît pas avoir été effectué, aussi peu que celui des immeubles, dont l’aliénation avoit été annoncée comme impossible pendant le cours de la guerre. La nommée Sophie Neumann née Ravenhorst, établie à Berlin et soeur du Pasteur décédé en Géorgie, a réclamé la protection de son Souverain, et c’est en conséquence des Ordres du Roi, que le Soussigné Envoyé Extraordinaire de Sa Majesté a été autorisé de mettre les détails de cette affaire sous les yeux de Monsieur Adams, Ministre Plénipotentiaire des Etats-Unis de l’Amérique à la Haye. Il se flatte que ce Ministre voudra bien employer ses bons offices pour procurer aux héritiers une copie authentique du testament et de l’inventaire, et faire les représentations nécessaires là où il appartient pour que l’Exécuteur soit tenu à rendre compte du provenu de la succession, des déniers qu’il a administrés, et des capitaux et biens fonds dont la liquidation pourroit être encore indécise.
You wished, sir, to be informed about the merchandise and products that might be the objects of a reciprocal trade between the states of His Prussian Majesty and those of the United States of America.1 I am too flattered to establish these new commercial ties in concert with you not to hurry to communicate the ideas that I have collected, either from the information that my court has previously supplied me, or from information that I have received through other channels. The picture that I am setting before your eyes will be, however, very abbreviated. Limiting myself to the most essential goods, I am offering you the following, sir, pending clarifications that you might desire, and which perhaps will be necessary when the negotiations with which we are entrusted are on more solid ground:
- Imports to the dominions of His Prussian Majesty:
- a. Virginia tobacco.
- b. Rice. 100
- c. Indigo.
- d. Whale oil.
- Exports from the king’s dominions for the possessions of the United States of America:
- a. Linens from Silesia, marketable throughout the American continent and the West Indies.
- b. Prussian hemp, one of the best known.
- c. Porcelain from Berlin, of a finer workmanship than that of Saxony, and less expensive.
- d. Various products of Prussian industry, such as the hardware of the County of the Mark, which up to now have passed, like Silesian linens, through the hands of the English, and which therefore increased in price when they entered America.
- e. All sorts of cloth, camlets, and other merchandise of this sort.
I might add, sir, that the king leaves it to Congress to choose one or another port of his states as the most convenient for the exchange of goods or for the deposit of merchandise. Emden, located near the North Sea, opens the door to business with the western part of Germany; Stettin, a maritime locale on the shores of the Baltic, to the interior of this vast region, by means of the Oder.2 Finally, the ports of the two Prussias establish a close business connection with the kingdom of Poland, where American fish products, in particular cod, could be retailed to great advantage.
I have the honor of being with the greatest esteem, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant
Mr. Christian Ravenhorst, Lutheran pastor in Ebenezer, Georgia, passed away there several years ago, and his widow, Anne Barbarine Krafftin, died in the same place on 1 July 1779.3 By means of a joint will set up by those two, the husband bequeathed as a preference legacy the sum of 300 pounds sterling to his three sisters, residing in the dominions of His Prussian Majesty, and the wife stipulated the same legacy for her family domiciled in Ravensburg. The rest of the estate was to fall in equal portions to the heirs of each of the testators, with funds taken out for two legacies, each in the amount of 40 pounds sterling to be settled on religious missions in India, and on the orphanage in Halle. Messrs. Joseph Schubtrin and Jacob Waldhauer of Ebenezer were named testamentary executors, and in that capacity they took possession of all of the estate, as it appears from the letter they wrote dated 4 May 1780 to a woman named Marie Hoppin, residing in Daber in Pomerania, one of the sisters of the late Ravenhorst. According to their own declaration, the personal property of 101 the estate was taxed at the rate of 487 pounds and 19 shillings; there were 400 pounds in outstanding debts, the recovery of which was committed to the lawyers. In addition there was real estate in the amount of 1300 arpents4 of land, provisionally administered by the testamentary executors. During the turmoil of the American war the heirs received no news at all about the arrangements made regarding the estate; but the latest word is that Professor Freylinghausen, one of the directors of the orphanage in Halle, was just informed in a letter from Pennsylvania, that one of the executors, Mr. Schubtrin, has since passed away, and that the second, Mr. Waldhauer, was robbed by a band of thieves of all the ready money and of all the effects from the estate entrusted to his administration. Supposing that this event is attested to by legal proofs, the just claims of the heirs to the outstanding debts would continue to exist in their entirety, as the recovery does not seem to have taken place, much less so in the case of the real estate, the alienation of which was declared impossible during the course of the war. The interested party, Sophie Neumann, née Ravenhorst, residing in Berlin and sister of the deceased pastor in Georgia, has requested the protection of her sovereign, and it is in consequence of the orders of the king that the undersigned special envoy of His Majesty has been authorized to place the particulars of this case before Mr. Adams, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America at The Hague. He flatters himself that this minister will be so kind as to use his good offices to procure for the heirs an authentic copy of the will and of the inventory of the estate, and to make the necessary protests where it is pertinent in order that the executor is made to account for the proceeds of the estate, for the funds that he administered, and for the capital goods and real property whose liquidation might remain to be settled.
RC and enclosure (Adams Papers); internal address: “Monsieur Adams, / Ministre Plénipotentiaire des Etats- / Unis de l’Amérique.”; endorsed: “Baron De Thulemeier”; enclosure endorsed: “Baron De Thulemeier.”
Thulemeier presumably is responding to an oral inquiry, but see JA’s 9 March letter to the president of Congress, above.
In 1784 Prussia was not unified and its parts were not contiguous. Emden, on the Ems River where it emptied into the North Sea, was widely separated from Stettin on the Oder River in Prussian Pomerania. Emden gave access to the Austrian Netherlands and western parts of Germany, while Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) offered entrée to Poland and Prussia proper. Prussia intended to offer one or both of the ports for American merchants to conduct trade with Prussia, but JA and his colleagues interpreted this to mean that one or both of the cities would be designated as free ports. Numerous exchanges took place over the issue until it became clear in the draft treaty proposed by the commissioners on 10 Nov., below, that the United States was offering Prussia access to all of its ports and that it behooved Prussia to do the same. For the correspondence regarding Emden and Stettin, see Thulemeier’s letters of 8 Oct., 10 Dec. 1784 (at 10 Nov. 1784 – 14 March 1785), 4 March 1785; from JA to Thulemeier, 27 March 1784; and from the commissioners to Thulemeier, 21 Jan. 1785, all below.
The Rev. Christian Ravenhorst (Rabenhorst, 1728–1776) was sent to America in 1752 to minister to the colony of German pietists settled at Ebenezer, Georgia, now extinct. The group, called the Salzburgers, had its origins in the approximately 20,000 Protestants expelled from the dominions of the
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archbishop of Salzburg in 1731 and upon reaching America in 1734 was established at Ebenezer by James Oglethorpe, Georgia’s founder. Soon after Ravenhorst arrived he married the widow Anna Maria Kraft (d. 1779) and at the time of his death was the leader of one of the two groups into which the Salzburgers had split. The men named as executors of Ravenhorst’s estate, Joseph Schubtrin (Schubdrein) and Jacob Waldhauer, were adherents to his faction (George Fenwick Jones, The Salzburger Saga: Religious Exiles and Other Germans along the Savannah, Athens, Ga., 1984, p. 7–8, 14, 113–114, 122, 135, 177). For Congress’ disposition of the Ravenhorst case, see the [9] July letter from the Committee of the States, below.
An obsolete French measure of land, which ranged regionally from 5/6 of an acre to 1 1/4 acres (
OED
).
th:1784.
I have receiv’d the Letter you did me, the Honour to write me, on the twenty fourth of this month, and upon looking into the Treaty, I suspect you have not a right Copy. It is the 27th: Article, which relates to the subject of shipping sailors, and not the 28th as you suppose. And upon reading over attentively the 27th: Article, I am afraid of doing mischief if I were, to intermeddle, or move any question, concerning it untill I know that a Construction shall be put upon it, different from the true one. There can be no doubt, that orders have been long since given to all subordinate officers, to see that the Treaty is not violated.
With great Esteem &c.
LbC in JQA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “Messrs: Daniel Crommelin & Sons”; APM Reel 107.
th:1784
I have the Honour to inclose Copies of three Notes which I have receiv’d from the Prussian Minister, the Baron de Thulemeier, by which Congress will see, that the King has agreed to take our Treaty with Sweeden for a Model, reserving to each Party the right of suggesting such alterations as shall appear to him convenient—1 My Request to Congress is, that they would be pleased to send Instructions at the same time when they send a Commission, what Articles of the Treaty with Sweeden they would have expunged, and what new ones inserted, if any.— I mention the sending a Commission, because I suppose it is the Intention of Congress to send one— The Instructions already receiv’d are not a full Power under which any
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Sovereign can conclude, nor regularly even treat. We can only confer. There will be some difficulty about the Signature, since his Majesty chooses the Negotiation should be conducted by Mr: De Thulemeier. if Congress send the Commission to their Ministers at the late Peace as they did the Instructions, Mr: De Thulemeier must take a Journey to Paris, or a Majority of the American Ministers must be at the Hague.2
It is a great Pleasure to me to be able to inform Congress that I have obtained a Promise of a sum sufficient upon the new Loan to save the Honour of the Financier’s Bills, altho’ I regret the Severity of the Terms, they were the most moderate, which would obtain the Money. I hope for the Approbation of Congress, and their Ratification of the Contract as soon as may be. Money is really so scarce, and there are so many Loans open on even higher Conditions, that it will not be possible I fear to obtain more Money here, on more reasonable ones. An Impost once laid on to pay the Interest whether by the Authority of Congress if that should be agreed to, or by that of the Several States, would soon give us better Credit here. But in order to keep up our Reputation upon which our credit depends, there should be somebody constantly residing here, to publish illustrations of our affairs, and to confute the Calumnies of our Enemies of all Denominations.
With great, and sincere Respect I have the honour to be, / Sir / Your most obedient, humble Servant.
RC in JQA’s hand and enclosures (PCC, No. 84, V, f. 227–228); internal address: “His Excellency Thomas Mifflin Esqr. / President of Congress.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 107.
JA enclosed Thulemeier’s letter of 14 March, regarding the Swedish-American treaty as a model for a Prussian-American treaty, and his letter of 25 March with its enclosed note regarding the estate of Rev. Christian Ravenhorst, all above.
This letter and its enclosures, as well as JA’s letter of 10 April, below, reached Congress on 5 July and were acted upon by the Committee of the States, then meeting during the adjournment of Congress (PCC, No. 185, III, f. 103;
JCC
, 27:579–580). For the committee’s response to JA’s request, see its letter of [9] July, below.