University of Virginia Library

TO JOSEPH JONES.[1]

Dear Sir,—Agreeably to your favor of the second
instant, which came to hand yesterday, I shall send

this to Fredericksburg. I am sorry that either your
own health or that of your lady should oblige you to
leave the Legislature before the principal business of
the session is finished. I shall be more sorry, if
either of these causes should disappoint my hopes of
your return to Philadelphia at the promised time. I
am the more anxious for your return, because I
suppose it will supersede the proposed measure of
sending an Envoy to Congress on the business you
mention. If the facts are transmitted by the Speaker
of the Assembly or the Executive, may they not be
laid before Congress with as much efficacy by the established
Representatives of the State as by a special
messenger? And will not the latter mode in some
measure imply a distrust in the former one, and lower
us in the eyes of Congress and the public? The application
to the Court of France has been anticipated.
Congress have even gone so far as to appoint an
Envoy Extraordinary to solicit the necessary aids.
Colonel Laurens was invested yesterday with that
office. I leave the measure to your own reflection.
How far it may be expedient to urge Spain to assist
us, before she is convinced of the reasonableness of
our pretensions, ought to be well weighed before it
be tried. The liberty we took in drawing on her for
money, excited no small astonishment, and probably
gave an idea of our distress, which confirmed her
hopes of concession on our part. Accounts received
since my last, repeat her inflexibility with regard to
the object[2] in question between us. It is indispensable
that we should in some way or other know the
ultimate sense of our constituents on this important
matter.

Mr. Laurens is certainly in captivity. An Irish
paper tells us he was committed to the Tower on the
sixth of October, under a warrant from the three Secretaries
of State. Portugal has acceded to the neutral
league so far as to exclude the English from the privileges
her armed vessels have hitherto enjoyed in her
ports. The Ariel, with Paul Jones, and the clothing
&c., on board, was dismasted a day or two after she
sailed, and obliged to put back into port. If General
Washington detaches no further aid to the southward,
it will be owing to the reduction of his force by
the expiration of enlistments. The Pennsylvania
line is mostly engaged for the war, and will soon
form almost the whole of the army under his immediate
command.

Mr. Sartine, it seems, has been lately removed from
the administration of the Naval Department, in consequence
of his disappointing the general hopes
formed from the great means put into his hands.
When it was mentioned to me by Mr. Marbois, I
took occasion to ask whether the deception with regard
to the second division ought to be ultimately
charged upon him, observing to him the use the enemies
of the alliance had made of that circumstance.
From the explanation that was given, I believe, the
blame rests upon his head, and that his removal was
the effect of it in a great measure; though it is possible,
he may, like many others, have been sacrificed

to ideas of policy, and particularly in order to cancel
the unfavorable impression which the disappointment
left on America. A high character is given, as might
be expected, of his successor, the Marquis de Castries,
particularly with respect to those qualities in
which Mr. Sartine is charged with having been most
deficient.