Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 3

2. Copies of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and of the Convention concerning Recaptures, in Dutch and English, are in Adams Papers under this date; the English copies are in JA's hand. ||Both are now available in Papers of John Adams, volume 13, as Final Text of the Dutch American-Treaty of Commerce, [ante 6 September 1782] and Final Text of the Dutch-American Convention on Recaptures, [ante 6 September 1782] ||. For printings of the texts as signed, with essential notes on their transmission, ratification, and location, see Miller, ed., Treaties , 2:59–95. In a letter {p. 17} of this day to Livingston JA furnished an illuminating history of the negotiation that produced the Treaty and Convention (PCC, No. 84, IV; Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 5:803–805). The Dutch Republic ratified them on 27 Dec. 1782; Congress did so on 23 Jan. 1783; and the ratifications were exchanged at The Hague on 23 June 1783, Dumas acting for JA, who was in Paris. On the day of this exchange the first minister from the Netherlands to the United States, Pieter Johan van Berckel, a burgomaster of Rotterdam and the brother of JA's friend E. F. van Berckel of Amsterdam, sailed for his post.

The “Truce Chamber” where the highly ceremonial signing took place is the magnificent room still known as the Trevèszaal, in a 17th-century building on the water side of the Binnenhof, now reached through Binnenhof 20 (offices of the Netherlands Ministry of Traffic and Waters). See Truce Chamber at The Hague Where John Adams Signed the Dutch-American Treaty of 1782 facing page 64illustration in this volume.