To Benjamin Franklin from John Adams, 7 July 1781
From John Adams
AL: American Philosophical Society
Hotel de Valois July. 7 17818
Mr Adams presents his Compliments to Dr Franklin and prays him to let his servant take the Trunks left at Passy to Paris. Mr A. will do himself the Honour to pay his Respects to his Excellency, very soon.
Addressed: a Monsieur / Monsieur Francklin Ministre / Plenip des Etats unis de lamerique / A Passy
8. JA had been summoned to Paris by Vergennes to discuss the proposals which the Austrian and Russian governments had offered as mediators of the war (for which see the headnote to the commissions of the American peace commissioners, June 15). He arrived on July 6: Butterfield, John Adams Diary, II, 456–8; James H. Hutson, John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution (Lexington, Ky., 1980), pp. 96–7. WTF later said that JA “was entirely silent with my Grandfather, as to the business he came upon”: WTF to Carmichael, July 27 (Library of Congress).