John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Diplomatic History History 1980 John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution James H. Hutson Library of Congress Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Hutson, James H., "John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution" (1980). Diplomatic History. 4. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_diplomatic_history/4 JOHN ADAMS AND THE DIPLOMACY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION JAMES H. HUTSON JOHN ADAMS AND THE DIPLOMACY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY FOR KATHY Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hutson, James H John Adarns and the diplomacy of the American Revolution Bibliography: p. Includes Index. 1. United States-Foreign relations-Revolution, 1775-1783 2. Adams, John, Pres. U. S., 1735- 1826. I. Title. E249.H87 973.3'2'0924 79-57575 ISBN 978-0-8 13 1-53 14-8 Copyright@ 1980 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth serving Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial andSaLes Ofices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506 CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Chapter 1 Formulating an American Foreign Policy 1 Chapter 2 France, 1778-1779 33 Chapter 3 France Again, 1780 5 1 Chapter 4 The Netherlands 75 Chapter 5 Dutch Recognition 102 Chapter 6 Peace Negotiations 117 Chapter 7 John Adarns and Revolutionary Diplomacy 142 Notes 157 A Note on Sources 191 Index 193 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Edmund S. Morgan, Sterling Professor of History, Yale Universi- ty, has read and criticized this manuscript twice and has encour- aged me to publish it. Without his assistance and moral support at critical periods, it would have never become a book. Stephen G. Kurtz, now principal of Phillips Exeter Academy, also helped me by interrupting his busy schedule and giving the manuscript a tough-minded reading. Several other people have assisted me in ways of which they, perhaps, were not aware: Mr. and Mrs. David Hutson, Mrs. Joseph Hranac, Gayle and Tracey Weber, and Benjamin and Scott Hutson. I am grateful for the opportu- nity of working at an institution as hospitable to ideas as the Li- brary of Congress and would like, in particular, to acknowledge the intellectual stimulation supplied by my colleagues in the Manuscript Division. vii This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 FORMULATING AN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY The foreign policy of the American Revolution was not revolutionary. The ideas shaping it were those that informed European diplomatic thinking throughout the eighteenth century. Colo- nial Americans adopted those ideas as readily as they did the fashions, the books, and the other appurtenances of European culture that they imported so avidly. John Adams and his fellow statesmen of the Revolution absorbed the ideas as they grew up and, in 1776, applied them to the new American nation's relations with foreign powers. Eighteenth-centuryEuropean diplomacy, writes Felix Gilbert, was "entirely dominated by the concept of power." Its key ideas were the balance of power, which apologists promoted as an en- lightened mechanism to secure peace, and "the doctrine of the interest of states," according to which interest was the sole arbi- ter of political action.' The economic theory underpinning eighteenth-century diplomacy was mercantilism, which mea- sured national power by national wealth and considered commerce as the source of both.2 The eighteenth century broadened the balance of power to include colonies and affimed that colonial commerce was the decisive counter in the balance. French Foreign Minister Choiseul summarized this outlook in 1759: John Adams "The true balance of power really resides in commerce and America. "3 A diplomacy based on power was congenial to eighteenth- century Americans because they subscribed to a theory of politics, propounded by English Opposition writers, which stressed that "the ultimate explanation of every political controversy was the disposition of power." The sensitivity of colonial Americans to power was, according to a leading expositor of their ideas, "one of the most striking things" in their thinking.* Even had colonial Americans never heard of the English Opposition, they would have been attentive to power in politics because of their long conflict with the French. The object of the wars with France was dominion-power over the North American continent. Therefore, an appreciation of power in politics was natural for the colonists. In soliciting British assistance against the French, the colonists invoked religion and morality far less than self-interest and power, for they correctly assumed that British statesmen were more likely to be moved by calculations of power than by re- minders of religious affinity. At every crisis with the French, Americans stressed to the British that they could not afford to lose the colonies because they were the source of their national power and of their weight in the European balance. James Logan's "Of the State of the British Plantations in America" demonstrates that Americans had perfected this kind of appeal by 1732. Logan's paper was laced with references to the "true In- terest," the "present Interest," of Britain and her European competitors. And it insisted that Britain's power and her posi- tion in the European balance was derived from America. "The principal Security of Britain," wrote Logan, "consists in its Naval force and this is supported by its Trade and Navigation. [It is no] less certain that these are very much advanced by means of the British Dominions in America; the Preservation of which is therefore of the utmost importance to the Kingdom itself, for it is manifest that if France could possess itself of those Do- 3 American Foreign Policy minions and thereby become Masters of all their Trade . they would soon be an Overmatch in Naval Strength to the rest of Europe, and then be in a Condition to prescribe Laws to the whole." "The American Plantations," Logan con- cluded, "are of such Importance to Britain, that the Loss of them to any other Power, especially to France might be its own ruin. "5 King George's War (the War of the Austrian Succession) produced the customary American appeals to Britain: " 'All parts of the Empire were interdependent,' " wrote Massachusettensis in 1746, " 'and if the Colonies were lost . Britain would lose its own independence too.' "6 American balance-of-power argu- ments reached a crescendo during the early years of the French and Indian War, when the apparently unprecedented gravity of the French threat produced scores of anxious affirmations of America's importance to Britain. Taking their cue, perhaps, from Dr. John Mitchell, who in 1757 declared that "interest rules all the world. Why should it not rule in the C~lonies,"~ Americans vied with one another in emphasizing interest as the motive force of politics and in asserting their importance to the European balance of power. In a sermon preached to the Massa- chusetts General Court on May 29, 1754, Jonathan Mayhew as- serted that the "liberties of Europe" depended on the outcome of the struggle with the French, "for of so great consequence is the empire of North America . that it must turn the scale of power greatly in the favour of the only Monarch, from whom those liberties are in danger; and against the Prince, who is the grand support and bulwark of them." The next year the Penn- sylvania cartographer Lewis Evans predicted that the possession of the Ohio Country "will make so great an addition to that Na- tion which wins it, where there is no third State to hold the Bal- lance of Power, that the Loser must inevitably sink under his Rival." According to Doctor William Clarke of Boston, writing in the same year, "These Colonies are of such Consequence to the Trade, Wealth and Naval Power of Great-Britain, and will in John Adams future Time make so much larger Additions to it, that whilst she keep them entire, she will be able to maintain not only her Inde- pendency, but her Superiority as a Maritime Power. And on the other Hand, should she once lose them, and the French gain them, Great Britain herself must necessarily be reduced to an ab- solute Subjection to the French Crown, to nothing more than a Province of France."* Americans, it is apparent, endorsed the conviction of European diplomacy, that "they controlled the balance of power among the various colonizing nations" and "that whichever nation controlled North America would hold the hegemony of power over the rest of Europe. "9 Most of the leaders of the American Revolution matured during the French and Indian War-John Adams graduated from college the month of Braddock's defeat-and they adopted as their own the attitude toward foreign affairs which prevailed during that period. Since few statements by leaders of the Revo- lution survive from the 1750s, the proof of this contention must principally rest on the similarity between the foreign-policy as- sumptions of the Revolution and of the French and Indian War. John Adams is unusual in that he left statements about his youthful attitude toward foreign affairs which show the conti- nuity of his views between the 1750s and the 1770s.

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