1. The letter from William Allen Deas of 28 Oct. and the enclosed ratification are in DNA: RG 59, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to Great Britain. Deas noted that the British ratification “corresponds with that of the President,” reported that the British government would soon send instructions to the governor general in Canada for “settling the Arrangements previous to the Evacuation of the Western Posts,” and discussed the salaries to be paid to the commissioners appointed under the treaty to settle claims and the boundary between Maine and Canada. He also indicated that Lord Grenville had deflected Deas’s attempt to discuss the British order of 25 April for the detention of American vessels suspected of carrying provisions to France, and he requested further instructions on that issue.

Pickering underlined the word “copy” because of reluctance to proclaim the treaty without the original ratification document (which did not arrive until April). In the end, however, GW used the copy as evidence to proclaim the treaty on 29 Feb. 1796 (Miller, Treaties, description begins Hunter Miller, ed. Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America. Vol. 2, 1776-1818. Washington, D.C., 1931. description ends 273–74).

2. In his letter of 4 Oct. to the secretary of state, Joseph Fenwick quoted a letter from one of the Bacri merchants at Algiers to a brother at Marseilles, in which the merchant announced that “Peace is made thro’ our chanel between the dey and the U. States.” Fenwick also reported that provisions were plentiful and prices low at Bordeaux, that “The Peace with Spain has given a spring to the trade of this Part of France,” and that 300 American vessels had entered Bordeaux since 1 Jan. (DNA: RG 59, Consular Despatches, Bordeaux).

Stephen Cathalan, Jr., also quoted the Bacri letter in his letter of 24 Sept. to Edmund Randolph. Cathalan added that prices at Marseilles would allow American goods, except for tobacco, to be “Sold advantageously here,” and he hoped to see many America vessels arrive there soon (DNA: RG 59, Consular Despatches, Marseilles).

It seems likely that Pickering enclosed John Quincy Adams’s letter of 5 Oct. to the secretary of state, as John Adams wrote to Abigail Adams on 2 Jan. 1796 that letters to that date had been received (MHi: Adams Papers; see also Adams Family Correspondence, description begins Lyman H. Butterfield et al., eds. Adams Family Correspondence. 13 vols. to date. Cambridge, Mass., 1963–. description ends 11:118–20). In the letter of 5 Oct., John Quincy Adams reported that the general embargo briefly imposed upon all vessels in Dutch ports had been lifted, but that he had received no response to his memorial to the Dutch government demanding the exemption of American vessels from the restriction. He also enclosed newspapers reporting the current news and commented on successes of the French army in Germany, a second expedition of emigrants from England into France, the expected approval of the new French constitution, and the likely partition of Poland (DNA: RG 59, Despatches from U.S. Ministers to the Netherlands).