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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

answer (mutatis mutandis). - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 7 (Letters and State Papers 1777-1782) [1852]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 7.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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answer (mutatis mutandis).

The Courts of Versailles and of Madrid having caused to be transmitted to the two Imperial Courts their respective answers to the articles to serve as a basis to the negotiation which had been communicated to them, as the Court of London had communicated her answer to them on the 15th of June last, they think they ought not to delay to communicate them reciprocally to the three Courts respectively, as necessary for their mutual directions. And they have consequently charged their ambassadors and ministers to the said Courts to present copies of them to their ministries.

Their Imperial Majesties have perceived, with great satisfaction, in that which his most Christian Majesty has transmitted to them, the assurance of the gratitude and zeal with which he had received the said articles; but they could not but be so much the more afflicted (peinées) at the exposition of the reasons which have appeared to his Majesty to oppose themselves to their acceptation.

It appears to them convenient, in the present state of things, to refer to other times and other circumstances the observations of which they are susceptible, and which it would probably be useless to disclose at this moment; but that which is not (useless) either for the present or the future, is that the belligerent powers may contemplate in a true point of view the articles which have been proposed to them, and, consequently, appreciate them at their just value.

The mediating powers ought not to allow themselves either any of those propositions which have wounded the dignity or the delicacy of one or the other of the parties or any of those which might antecedently have drawn after them, explicitly or implicitly, decisions which can only be the result of consent, obtained by the way of negotiations.

They ought, consequently, to confine themselves to seek and to find some means proper to place the belligerent powers in a situation to be able to assemble their respective plenipotentiaries at the place of the congress, there to labor, under the mediation of the two Imperial Courts, for the amicable arrangement of all the differences which are the causes of the present war; and to the end, that, once assembled and furnished with instructions for all possible events, they may be there continually ready and authorized to seize one or another of those happy moments which circumstances sometimes present, and which frequently are lost forever, or at least for a long time, when men have not been vested with power to take advantage of them. They have not perceived in this plan any other inconvenience possible, than perhaps that of the progress of a negotiation not altogether so rapid as it would no doubt be desirable that it should be. The idea of a suspension of arms and the fixation of a statu quo, in itself independent of the rest of the propositions, may be adopted or not adopted, at pleasure. And it has consuquently appeared to them, on weighing with the greatest impartiality the possible advantages and the inconveniences of the acceptation of their propositions, that nothing was more convenient to the respective interests of the belligerent parties, as well as to their general and particular circumstances; they persist in this opinion, and by this means, from the sincere interest which they take in the circumstances of the belligerent parties, they cannot but wish that they may still admit among themselves, with the modifications which they wish to subjoin, the articles which have been proposed to them; which, as is very justly observed by his Most Christian Majesty, are not, in fact, preliminary articles, as by the nature of things they could not be, but are not the less a measure which may cause to succeed, in some moment or other, not only an arrangement of preliminaries, but perhaps even an accomplishment of peace, of which the most prompt return possible is for so many reasons so desirable.

The two Imperial Courts have thought it due to the confidence with which his Most Christian Majesty has explained himself in regard to them, in his answer, to manifest that with which they expose to him in return, the manner in which they consider the measure of their proposition of the articles, which they have caused to be communicated to him, as well as the wishes which they persist to entertain, provided the belligerent parties can still adopt those which have been proposed to them, or at least if that cannot be done, communicate to them some other idea proper to produce the same effects, or still happier effects, if that be possible.

His Most Christian Majesty may be assured beforehand, that, in this case, with all possible zeal, they will exert themselves to make such use of it as shall appear to them may be the most useful and the most convenient; nothing being more certain than the sincerity of those sentiments, with which they will take care to justify on all occasions the confidence which has been reposed in them by the high belligerent parties, by accepting their mediation.