Article V of the Anglo-American Treaty of 1794 (“Jay's Treaty”) provided for a joint commission to determine “what River was truly intended under the name of the River St. Croix,” which had been designated in the Preliminary and Definitive Treaties of 1782 and 1783 as part of the boundary between Canada and the United States (Miller, ed., Treaties , 2:249). James Sullivan, attorney general of Massachusetts and president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, was the agent appointed to represent the United States before the Commissioners, and being about to sail to Halifax for a meeting of the tribunal, he wrote to JA, 30 July, to inquire whether the river called the St. Croix on John Mitchell's Map of ... North America was the river that the Peace Commissioners had meant (Adams Papers; JA, Works , 8:518–519). A draft or retained fair copy of JA's answer of 2 Aug. is also in Adams Papers; same, p. 519–520. Concerning Mitchell's Map, the most important map in American diplomatic history, see the discussion in Miller, ed., Treaties , 3:328–351. The proceedings of the St. Croix Commission are printed in Moore, ed., International Arbitrations, vol. 1: ch. 1. See also the entries of 10–11 Aug., below.

See John Rutherfurd to JA, 28 June 1796 (Adams Papers), relative to a work by Robert Somerville entitled Outlines of the Fifteenth Chapter of the Proposed General Report from the Board of Agriculture. On the Subject of Manures ..., London, 1795. JA's answer has not been found; he soon afterward presented a copy of the book to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Eliphalet Pearson to JA, 7 Sept. 1796, Adams Papers).