FOOTNOTES:

[10] See Franklin's Correspondence. Vol. IV. p. 36.

* * * * *

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON TO JOHN JAY.

Philadelphia, January 4th, 1783.

Dear Sir,

I have before me your despatches of the 4th and 18th of September
last, and the 13th of October. It gives me much uneasiness to find by
them, that your health is not yet confirmed, particularly as the
extreme shortness of your letters, compared with the importance of the
matter, gives me reason to fear, that it has suffered more than you
would have us believe.

I am under some anxiety relative to the fate of your letter of the
18th of September, as only the duplicate copy has arrived, and I find
by that you have risked it without a cypher. Should it get into
improper hands, it might be attended with disagreeable consequences.

It is of so much importance, that both you and we should judge rightly
of the designs of the Court, to whom we have intrusted such extensive
powers, that I most earnestly wish you had enlarged on the reasons
which have induced you to form the opinion you intimate; an opinion,
which, if well founded, must render your negotiations extremely
painful, and the issue of them very uncertain. If on the other hand,
it should have been taken up too hastily, it is to be feared, that in
defiance of all that prudence and self-possession, for which you are
happily distinguished, it will discover itself in a reserve and want
of confidence, which may afford hopes to our artful antagonists of
exciting jealousies between us and our friends. I so sincerely wish
that your conjectures on this head may not be well founded, that I am
led to hope you carry your suspicions too far, and the more so as Dr
Franklin, to whom I dare say you have communicated them freely, does
not (as you say) agree in sentiment with you. But I pretend not to
judge, since I have not the advantage of seeing from the same ground.
Perhaps some light may be thrown upon the subject by such facts as I
have been able to collect here, and with which it is impossible you
should be acquainted.

The policy you suppose to influence the measures of France, can only
be founded in a distrust, which I persuade myself she can hardly
entertain of those who have put their dearest interest into her hands.
She is too well informed of the state of this country, to believe
there is the least reason to suppose, tha