HENRY LAURENS TO THE COMMISSIONERS. Gentlemen, London, June 20th, 1783. Permit me to refer to what I had the honor of writing to you the 17th. You will recollect my suggestions, ás soon as we perceived the falling off from those warm assurances, which had been pressed in March and April. They were not ill founded. I delayed a week in hopes of intelligence, and left you with reluctance; the temper of the times forbids even an essay. What a happy country is this, where everything pertaining to the public is rendered to them in public newspapers. See the enclosed, containing nearly as accurate an account of certain recent occurrences, as if it had been penned by one of the parties. It might indeed have been made a little stronger. Modest men are sometimes restrained from attempting a public good, from a dread of the effects of envy, of being held up in an invidious light. It would be cruel to disturb them. I have heard nothing from America, save what you may have read in the prints. Tomorrow I shall proceed to Bath, and be waiting for intelligence, as well from yourselves as from Congress. Some consolation arises from reflecting, that while I am endeavoring to mend my health, you suffer no inconvenience from my absence. With sincere regard and respect, HENRY LAURENS. Sir, TO THE COUNT DE VERGENNES. Passy, June 28th, 1783. Mr Grand, banker to the Congress, having laid before us the annexed state of their affairs in his hands, we conceive ourselves indispensably obliged to communicate the same to your Excellency, as some important interests of both countries are concerned.* Before the peace was known in America, and while Mr Morris had hopes of obtaining the five per cent duty and a larger loan from his Majesty, the immediate urgent necessities of the army obliged him to draw bills, and sell them to the merchants, to raise money for the purchase of provisions, to prevent their starving or disbanding. The merchants have thereupon formed their plans of business, and remitted those bills to their correspondents here, to pay debts, and purchase goods in this kingdom, to be carried home in the ships, that are come, or coming to France, thus to open a larger commerce with this nation. If those bills cannot be paid, the creditors of America will be disappointed and greatly hurt, and the commerce will be deranged and discouraged in its first operations, of which the numerous ill consequences are more easily imagined than described. Our loan in Holland is going on, and with such prospect of success, that the bankers, who have the care of it, have lately sent by express to Mr Adams all the blank obligations, necessary to complete it, for VOL. X. *See Mr Grand's letter above, p. 139. 23 him to sign, that they might have them ready to deliver as demanded, his return thither being delayed. This loan will, therefore, probably answer the bills Mr Morris has drawn on those bankers. But the protesting any of his bills here would occasion such an alarm there, as must probably entirely stop any further progress of that loan, and thereby increase the mischief. The government of the Congress would also be enfeebled by it. We apprehend, too, that, in the present unsettled situation of our affairs with England, such a failure might have very ill effects, with respect to our negotiations. We therefore request your counsel, hoping your wisdom, which has so often befriended our nation, may point out some way, by which we may be extricated from this distress. And as the King has hitherto so generously assisted us, we hope that, if it is any way practicable, his Majesty will crown the glorious work, by affording us this help, at the different periods when it will be wanted, and which is absolutely the last that will be asked. We are, with sincere and great respect, &c. PROPOSITIONS MADE BY THE COMMISSIONERS TO DA VID HARTLEY FOR THE DEFINITIVE TREATY. ARTICLE I. To omit in the definitive treaty the exception, at the end of the second Article of the provisional treaty, viz. these words, "excepting such islands as now are, or heretofore have been within the limits of the said Province of Nova Scotia." ARTICLE II. The prisoners made respectively, by the arms of his Britannic Majesty, and the United States, by sea and by land, not already set at liberty, shall be restored reciprocally and bona fide, immediately after the ratification of the definitive treaty, without ransom, and on paying the debts they may have contracted during their captivity; and each party shall respectively reimburse the sums, which shall have been advanced, for the subsistence and maintenance of the prisoners, by the sovereign of the country where they shall have been detained, according to the receipts and attested accounts, and other authentic titles, which shall be produced on each side. ARTICLE III. His Britannic Majesty shall employ his good offices and interposition with the King or Emperor of Morocco or Fez, the Regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, or with any of them, and also with every other Prince, State or power of the coast of Barbary, in Africa, and the subjects of the said King, Emperor, States and powers and each of them, in order to provide as fully and efficaciously as possible for the benefit, conveniency and safety of the said United States and each of them, their subjects, people and inhabitants, and their vessels and effects, against all violence, insult, attacks or depredations on the part of the said Princes and States of Barbary, or their subjects. ARTICLE IV. If war should hereafter arise between Great Britain and the United States, which God for bid, the merchants of either country then residing in the other, shall be allowed to remain nine months to collect their debts and settle their affairs, and may depart freely, carrying off all their effects without molestation or hinderance. And all fishermen, all cultivators of the earth, and all artisans and manufacturers unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages or places, who labor for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, and peaceably follow their respective employments, shall be allowed to continue the same, and shall not be molested by the armed force of the enemy in whose power, by the events of war, they may happen to fall; but if anything is necessary to be taken from them, for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at a reasonable price. And all merchants or traders with their unarmed vessels employed in commerce, exchanging the products of different places and thereby rendering the necessaries, conveniences and comforts of human life more easy to obtain, and more general, shall be allowed to pass freely unmolested. And neither of the powers, parties to this treaty, shall grant or issue any commission, to any private armed vessels, empowering them to take or destroy such trading ships, or interrupt such commerce. ARTICLE V. And in case either of the contracting parties, shall happen to be engaged in war with any other nation, it is further agreed, in order to prevent all the difficulties and misunderstandings that usually arise respecting the merchandise heretofore called contraband, such as arms, ammunition, and military stores of all kinds, that no such articles carrying by the ships |