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The Federalist Period, 1783-1803
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General SummaryThis communication, dated March 26, 1785, addressed by the English ambassador in Paris, John Frederick Sackville, Duke of Dorset, to the American commissioners to the Court of France—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson—is of interest in expressing the skepticism of the British government as to the power of the American Congress to uphold a treaty which one or more of the thirteen States might oppose. In May of the year before the American diplomats had been sent to Europe under a general power to make commercial treaties, especially one with England that involved the Newfoundland fisheries. The English skepticism was inspired by the knowledge that the New England States were determined to have their fishing rights protected. \n Largely through the efforts of Adams, who had just secured the recognition of the United States as an independent nation by the Dutch government, this and other treaties were negotiated.
England and the United States at Loggerheads
HAVING communicated to my Court the readiness you expressed in your letter to me of the 9th of December, to remove to London, for the purpose of treating upon such points as may materially concern the interests, both political and commercial, of Great Britain and America, and having at the same time represented that you declared yourselves to be fully authorized and empowered to negotiate, I have been, in answer thereto, instructed to learn from you, gentlemen, what is the real nature of the powers with which you are invested, whether you are merely commissioned by Congress, or whether you have received separate powers from the respective States. A committee of North American merchants have waited upon his Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for foreign affairs, to express how anxiously they wished to be informed upon this subject, repeated experience having taught them in particular, as well as the public in general, how little the authority of Congress could avail in any respect, where the interests of any one individual State was even concerned, and particularly so, where the concerns of that particular State might be supposed to militate against such resolutions as Congress might think proper to adopt.
The apparent determination of the respective States to regulate their own separate interests, renders it absolutely necessary, towards forming a permanent system of commerce, that my Court should be informed how far the Commissioners can be duly authorized to enter into any engagements with Great Britain, which it may not be in the power of any one of the States to render totally fruitless and ineffectual.
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Chicago: John Frederick Sackville, "England and the United States at Loggerheads," The Federalist Period, 1783-1803 in America, Vol.4, Pp.91-92 Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=BSFZG43YIRCH8P9.
MLA: Sackville, John Frederick. "England and the United States at Loggerheads." The Federalist Period, 1783-1803, in America, Vol.4, Pp.91-92, Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=BSFZG43YIRCH8P9.
Harvard: Sackville, JF, 'England and the United States at Loggerheads' in The Federalist Period, 1783-1803. cited in , America, Vol.4, Pp.91-92. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=BSFZG43YIRCH8P9.
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