Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 5

1. This treaty culminated more than two years of diplomatic labors by JA. The climactic event was the Netherlands' decision, on 19 April, to recognize JA as the representative of an independent sovereign nation, an act that JA himself called “a signal Tryumph” for the United States (to AA, 1 July, vol. 4:338). Copies of the treaty, in English and Dutch, are in the Adams Papers, dated 8 October. See Thaxter to JA, 20 April (vol. 4:311–313); JA, Diary and Autobiography , 3:3–5, note 1, 8–9, note 1, 16–17, note 2; and Celeste Walker, John Adams & a “signal Tryumph”: The Beginning of 200 Years of American-Dutch Friendship, Massachusetts Historical Society, Picturebook, Boston, 1982.