Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 11

4. In the printed English version, A Memorial. To their High Mightinesses, the States General of the United Provinces of the Low-Countries, [Leyden, 1781], the preceding phrase reads “consistent with the Treaties already formed with France & Spain.” JA wanted the word “Treaties” replaced with “Relations,” see JA to Dumas, 19 May, and Dumas' reply of 23 May, both below. He personally corrected John Trumbull's copy of the Memorial [Leyden, 1781], now at the Massachusetts Historical Society, by writing the word “Relations” in the margin. He also must have corrected the Memorial he enclosed in his first letter of 16 May to the president of Congress, below, because when the Pennsylvania Gazette printed the memorial on 10 Oct. it used the word “Relations.” JA apparently failed to make the correction in the copy he sent to AA on 22 May because the Boston Independent Chronicle of 27 Sept. retained the word “Treaties” ( Adams Family Correspondence , 4:122). When JA published the memorial in 1782 as part of his Collection of State Papers, he evidently used the Memorial as his source, because the word “Treaties” and the differences indicated in note 5 are repeated.