to
Holland by Mr Adams's son, who will soon leave me, when I shall be
totally destitute of any assistance, and deprived of any person into
whose hands your papers might be committed in case of my death; nor is
it possible here to procure any one in whom I could safely confide. I
am the more easy about this, as I propose to return to America as soon
after I shall be received in my public character, as the principal
business of my mission shall be finished. I will, myself, bring any
treaty I may conclude here for ratification, when I doubt not I shall
be able to assign such reasons for my departure, without express
permission, as will be satisfactory to Congress.

I have the honor to be, &c.

FRANCIS DANA.

* * * * *

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

St Petersburg, September 29th, 1782.

Sir,

I have this day been honored with the duplicate of yours of the 10th
of May, and of the 22d and 29th of the same month, together with the
resolutions of Congress of the 22d of February, and of the 1st of
March last, relative to your department, but no copy of your letter,
or of the resolutions of Congress expressive of their sense of the
sentiments contained in the letter of the 10th of May, or of the
cypher, all of which you say are enclosed in that letter, has come to
hand with it.

If my first letter to you, dated March 5th, which was written by the
next post after the receipt of your first, has been received, and I
think it must have been soon after the date of your last, all anxiety
which might have been occasioned by my earlier letters from hence, I
hope will be removed, and that I shall be thought not to be totally
destitute of political prudence. When that letter was written, I was
rather apprehensive I might be censured by some as suffering prudence
to degenerate into pusillanimity, for not taking advantage of the
impression made by so important an event as the surrender of Lord
Cornwallis and his army, and thought it expedient to assign any
reasons for not doing it, knowing that we are apt to think events,
which so immediately change the face of affairs among ourselves,
operate almost as sudden changes in the systems of Europe.

My letter of June 28th, I hope also will have the same favorable
tendency. The measure mentioned in it, I presume will not be censured.
To say the