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

To their High Mightinesses the Lords, the States General of the United Netherlands. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799) [1853]

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. 8.

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

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To their High Mightinesses the Lords, the States General of the United Netherlands.

High and Mighty Lords,—

The subscriber, minister plenipotentiary from the United States of America, has the honor to communicate to your High Mightinesses a resolution of the United States of America, in congress assembled, of the 5th day of October, 1787, by which he is permitted, agreeably to his request, to return to America at any time after the 24th day of February, 1788, and by which his commission and credentials to your High Mightinesses are on that day to terminate.

Nothing would have been more agreeable to the inclinations of the subscriber than to have passed over to the Hague, in order to have paid his final respects, and to have taken leave of your High Mightinesses, had not the shortness of the time, the severity of the season, and the tender state of his health, been opposed to his wishes.

The magnanimity and wisdom with which your High Mightinesses, in 1782, manifested your friendship to the United States of America, contributed to accelerate the general peace of the world, which has lasted so long; and the candor and goodness of your High Mightinesses, and of the whole republic, to the subscriber, as well as to his country, have made impressions on his mind which neither time, place, nor circumstance, can ever efface.

In finishing his course in Europe, and in taking a respectful leave of your High Mightinesses, he begs leave to express his ardent wishes for the happiness and prosperity of your High Mightinesses and your families, and his sincere assurances that, in whatever country he may be, he shall never cease to pray for the liberty, the independence, and the universal happiness and prosperity of the whole republic of the United Netherlands.

Done at London, this twenty-fifth day of January, ad 1788.

John Adams.