Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 12

1. On 29 March, Charles James Fox informed the Russian ambassador at London that Britain was willing to agree “to an immediate cessation of hostilities” with the Netherlands and negotiate a peace treaty based “on free navigation according to the treaty of 1674.” This effort to separate the Dutch from the French represented a reversal of the British policy toward the League of Armed Neutrality. The Russian ambassador immediately wrote to Gallitzin and Markov, his colleagues at The Hague, and on 3 April { 390 } the two men submitted a memorial to the States General that contained the new British offer. Fox’s proposal failed because the French opposed a separate Anglo-Dutch peace and because the offer was made on the day the States of Holland voted to recognize the United States. By the time Fox renewed the offer in May, the States General had made the recognition official (De Madariaga, Armed Neutrality of 1780, p. 387–388, 396–397; Edler, Dutch Republic and Amer. Rev., p. 200; Dumas to Robert R. Livingston, 10 May, Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev., 5:408–410).