The Works of John Adams Vol. 3: Diary, Essays, Autobiography (Annotated) by John Adams

Author:John Adams [Adams, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Presidents & Heads of State
ISBN: 9783849693848
Google: W5wvDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 56562771
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2015-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

“Let us, since life can little more supply

Than just to look about us and to die,

Expatiate free.”

·

23. Saturday. Mr. Jay called at ten, and went out with me to Passy to meet the Marquis de Lafayette, at the invitation of Dr. Franklin. The Marquis’s business was to show us a letter he had written to the Count de Vergennes on the subject of money. This I saw nettled Franklin, as it seemed an attempt to take to himself the merit of obtaining the loan, if one should be procured. He gave us also a letter to us three, for our approbation of his going out with the Count d’Estaing. He recites in it, that he had remained here by our advice, as necessary to the negotiations. This nettled both Franklin and Jay. I knew nothing of it, not having been here; and they both denied it. This unlimited ambition will obstruct his rise; he grasps at all, civil, political, and military, and would be thought the unum necessarium in every thing; he has so much real merit, such family supports, and so much favor at Court, that he need not recur to artifice. He said, that Count de Vergennes told him, as the Chevalier de la Luzerne’s despatches were not arrived, the Count could do nothing in the aflair of money without something French to go upon; his letter, therefore, was to supply the something French. He told us, that the Count d’Aranda had desired him to tell Mr. Jay, as the lands upon the Mississippi were not yet determined, whether they were to belong to England or Spain, he could not yet settle that matter; so that probably the attempt will be to negotiate them into the hands of the Spaniards from the English. D’Aranda, Rayneval, Grantham, &c. may conduct this without Fitzherbert.

Spent part of the evening at Mrs. Izard’s. Mr. Oswald sent for Mr. Jay; desired to meet him at either house. Mr. Jay went, and I came off.

25. Monday. Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and myself, at eleven, met at Mr. Oswald’s lodgings. Mr. Strachey told us he had been to London, and waited personally on every one of the King’s Cabinet Council, and had communicated the last propositions to them; they, every one of them, unanimously condemned that respecting the tories, so that that unhappy affair stuck, as he foresaw and foretold that it would.

The affair of the fishery too, was somewhat altered. They could not admit us to dry on the shores of Nova Scotia, nor to fish within three leagues of the coast, nor within fifteen leagues of the coast of Cape Breton. The boundary they did not approve; they thought it too extended, too vast a country, but they would not make a difficulty. That if these terms were not admitted, the whole affair must be thrown into Parliament, where every man would be for insisting on restitution to the refugees. He talked about excepting a few, by name, of the most obnoxious of the refugees.

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