I have, this day recieved your favour of the 25th.,1 which gave me the first Intimation I had of your Intentions for Home.2 I am glad to learn that Captain Snelling delivered the Letters to you. I will endeavour to Send Some more, by Captain Jones or Some other Safe hand: but are you not Suspicious of your Passage? Be Sure to keep with your Convoy: for my own part I hardly see a Possibility of an unarmed Vessells geting safe over, without. We were surrounded by 5 or 6, very sawcy Privateers at a time, when I went home, and nothing but our twelve Pounders saved Us and the Convoy. I wish you, a safe and agreable Passage, and an happy sight of your Friends. You could not have a better month to sail. Pray do you take Mrs. Williams, to America? I have never had opportunity to wish you and Mrs. Williams happy, in Words, I have ever done so in my Heart. My Respects to your Father, and your Unkle and all Frids. I am with much respect & Esteem yr most obt. servant

I expected for writting to you, that I could tell, the wind serves, we sail to Morrow for your dear Country, and in six weeks hence, I shall see Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Dana, but since twenty days that we are on board, the wind has been Constantly to the south-west; it is only since this morning that we expect it will Come to the north, or est.

To Morrow, I hope, we shall sail, for ——xxx you know it better than I; but I can neither suppose or desire, that our expedition be entended for N. York. I think sooner, we go at New port, and our squadron, will at the meantime Cruze before Sandy Hook, to starve the british in their inexpugnable Lines. We are too few, for any thing else, and if we do attempt Rashly any important attacks, we may find an other Savanah.1

Whatever may be the place of our Landing in America, I hope to find means of forwarding, your Letters, to your familly and friends, and if it is Rhode Iland, I shall my self go to Braintree et Cambridge, and be the bearer of your packets.

Farewell. Be happy as much I desire & you deserve it, & believe me with a Respect equal to my gratitude for your kindness, your most obedient humble servant.

Paris, In this letter, 259which Congress received on 19 Feb. 1781, John Adams included an English translation of a memorial presented by the French ambassador to the States General on 26 April (given as 10 April in Wharton) that announced the repeal of the fifteen percent tariff levied by France on most Dutch goods by various decrees in 1778 and 1779, together with the return of all duties collected on Dutch goods that had entered France while the tariff was in effect. Adams also reported that news from The Hague as late as 26 April indicated that the various Dutch provinces and the States General were prepared to reject British demands for assistance under the terms of the Anglo-Dutch treaties; to grant unlimited convoys for Dutch merchant ships except those carrying goods explicitly labeled as contraband in existing treaties; and to accept Catherine II's invitation to join in a league of armed neutrals. He then communicated the substance of an instruction that the provinces of Holland and West Friesland proposed be sent by the States General to its ambassador in London totally rejecting Lord Stormont's justification of Como. Charles Fielding's seizure of the Dutch convoy. John Adams then noted Sweden's authorization of convoys, general European support for the French and Russian diplomatic position, and the general consensus in Europe that Britain now would seek peace. He disagreed with the last point, stating that “Signal Success on the part of the Allies, might compel them to it but signal Success in favor of the English, would urge them giddily on, no one can say to what lengths.” Finally, he gave the substance of a “speculative Article from Brussells” on the positions of Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands with regard to the Russian declaration of an armed neutrality and how it might effect the duration and outcome of the war.