To DAVID HARTLEY, Esq.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Passy, Sept. 7, 1783.

The enclosed letters to you and to Mr.

Fox, were written before I saw you yesterday.

On my return home last night I found dispatches from congress, which may remove the difficulties we were entangled with. Mr. Adams will be here this morning, when you will hear from us. I am ever, yours sincerely, B. FRANKLIN.

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TO DAVID HARTLEY, ESQ...

MY DEAR FRIEND,

you

Passy, Sept. 6, 1783.

Enclosed is my letter to Mr. Fox. I beg would assure him, that my expressions of esteem for him are not mere professions. I really think him a great man; and I would not think so, if I did not believe he was at bottom, and would prove himself a good one. Guard him against mistaken notions of the American people. You have deceived yourselves too long with vain expectations of reaping advantage from our little discontents. We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under the heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement, and for acquiring information. Our domestic misunderstandings, when we have them, are of small extent, though monstrously magnified by your microscopic newspapers. He who judges from them, that we are on the point of falling into anarchy, or returning to the obedience of Britain, is like one who being

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shown some spots in the sun, should fancy that the whole disk would soon be overspread with them, and that there would be an end of day-light. The great body of intelligence among our people, surrounds and overpowers our petty dissensions, as the sun's great mass of fire diminishes and destroys his spots. Do not therefore any longer delay the evacuation of New York, in the vain hope of a new revolution in your favour, if such a hope has indeed had any effect in occasioning that delay. It is now nine months since the evacuations were promised. You expect with reason that the people of New York should do your merchants justice in the payment of their old debts; consider the injustice you do them in keeping them so long out of their habitations and out of their business, by which they might have been enabled to make payment.

There is no truth more clear to me than this, that the great interest of our two countries is, a thorough reconciliation. Restraints on the freedom of commerce and intercourse between us, can afford no advantage equivalent to the mischief they will do by keeping up ill humour and promoting a total alienation. Let you and I, my dear friend, do our best towards advancing and securing that reconciliation. We can do nothing that will in a dying hour afford us more solid satisfaction. +

I wish you a prosperous journey, and a happy sight of your friends. Present my best respects to your good brother and sister, and believe me ever, with sincere and great esteem, yours most affectionately, B. FRANKLIN.

1

To

(Enclosed in the foregoing.)

TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J. Fox, Esq.

SIR,

Passy, Sept. 5, 1783.

I received in its time the letter you did me the honour of writing to me by Mr. Hartley. And I cannot let him depart without expressing my satisfaction in his conduct towards us, and applauding the prudence · of that choice which sent us a man possessed of such ‹a spirit of conciliation, and of all that frankness, sincerity,' and candour, which naturally produce confidence, and thereby facilitate the most difficult negociations. countries are now happily at peace, on which I congratu late you most cordially; and I beg you to be assured, that as long as I have any concern in public affairs, I shall readily and heartily concur with you, in promoting every measure that may tend to promote the common felicity.

Our

With great and sincere esteem and respect, I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, B. FRANKLIN.

To D. HARTLEY, ESQ........

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Passy, Sept. 7, 1783.

Enclosed I send you an extract of a letter to me from the President of Congress, in which you will observe the moderate disposition of that body towards the loyalists, with the causes of aggravation in the people's resentments against them. I am always invariably, yours most sincerely, B. FRANKLIN.

(Enclosed in the foregoing.).

EXTRACT of a LETTER from E. BOUDINOT, Esq. President of Congress, to B. FRANKLIN, dated June 18, 1783. (Private.)

"You will receive herewith a number of our newspapers, in which are inserted many resolves, associations, &c. from all parts of the country, which I earnestly wish had not been made but the truth is, that the cruelties, ravages, and barbarities of the refugees and loyalists, have left the people so sore that it is not yet time for them to exercise their good sense and cooler judgment; and this cannot take place, while the citizens of New York are kept out of their city, and despoiled daily of their property, by the sending off their negroes by hundreds in the face of the treaty. It has been exceedingly ill-judged in the British to retain New York so long, and to persist in sending away the negroes, as it has irritated the citizens of America to an alarming degree. I am, &c. 6.914 TO DAVID HARTLEY, ESQ. TRYD BY Pussy, Sept. 7, 1783.

SIR,

We have the honour of transmitting here with enclosed, a resolution of Congress of the 1st May last, which we have just received. Akt

You will perceive from it that we may daily expect a commission in due form for the purposes mentioned in it, and we assure you of our readiness to enter upon the business whenever you may ay think We have the honour to be, with great respect and

proper.

esteem, Sir, your most obedient and humble servants,

1

(Enclosed in the foregoing.)

BY THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS

ASSEMBLED.

May 1, 1783.

On the report of a committee to whom was referred a letter of Feb. 5, from the Hon. J. Adams; Ordered, That a commission be prepared to Messrs. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, authorising them, or either of them in the absence of the others, to enter into a treaty of commerce between the United States of America and Great Britain, subject to the revisal of the contracting parties, previous to its final conclusion: and in the mean time to enter into a commercial convention to continue in force one year.

That the secretary for foreign affairs lay before congress without delay a plan of a treaty of commerce, and instructions relative to the same, to be transmitted to the said commissioners.

CHARLES THOMPSON, Secretary.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY ELIAS BOUDINOT, ESQ. President of Congress.

SIR,

(EXTRACT.)

Passy, Sept. 10, 1783.

On the Srd instant, definitive treaties of peace were concluded between all the late belligerent powers, except the Dutch, who the day before settled and signed preliminary articles of peace with Britain.

We most sincerely and cordially congratulate congress and our country in general on this happy event, and we