I have before me the two Letters you honoured me with in date of Decr. 1st. and 10th. and am made sensible by what you are pleased to tell me that you have L6857.3 to claim, not of me however, as I have given you credit and M. Dana by your order, for the whole sum Dr. Franklin charged me to pay to you personally the 12th. feby 1780, as appears by the inclosed Copy of his order.1 But as M. Dana in his Accounts with Congress, no doubt given in to Dr. Franklin, must192 have acknowledged haveing received L6857.3 it makes it plain, the Doctor not having paid them, nor given an order on me for the same, that he is indebted to you for it.

I am going to Passy to settle that Matter if possible, at all rates please to write to M. Franklin by return of Post, to make an end of it;2 I shall also take on me to demand a fresh order on account of your Appointments, imagining the Freedom of Amsterdam must be kept up and ravituaillée as every where else.

RC (PCC, No. 84, III, f. 462–465). printed: Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 5:114–116. In this letter JA included English translations of two items that appeared in Dutch newspapers, including the Gazette de Leyde of 8 and 11 January. The first was the representation made on 31 Aug. by the Swedish minister at London, in company with the representatives of Denmark and Russia, to jointly mediate the Anglo-Dutch war so as to avoid further belligerent depredations on neutral trade. See also JA’s letters to the president of Congress of 6 Aug., 1st letter, calendared (vol. 11:440), and 13 Dec. 1781, calendared above. The second item concerned the British attempt to stop and search a convoy protected by the Swedish frigate Jeramis. The Swedish government rejected Britain’s claim that it had the right to search, even under the provisions of the armed neutrality. Sweden argued that such a right existed only for vessels not under convoy, in all other cases the sovereign flag served to guarantee the nature of the cargo and its ownership. A dispatch dated 14 Dec. at St. Petersburg reported that the Russian government approved the Swedish position and ordered its ministers at the belligerent courts to take like action in similar situations without waiting for specific orders to do so.