Office of Foreign Affairs, September 15th, 1782.
I have the honor to inform you, by the direction of Congress, that I have lately received official advices from Mr Adams, of the resolutions of their High Mightinesses the States General, to receive and acknowledge the said Mr Adams in quality of Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, and to request your Excellency to cause this interesting event to be made public. I have the honor to enclose copies of the resolutions of their High Mightinesses on this subject, and to inform you that the States General did, on the 23d day of April, appoint a Grand Committee to confer with Mr Adams, to whom, having been introduced in the usual forms by two noblemen, he laid before them the plan of a Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which was immediately printed, and sent to the different members of the sovereignty.
I cannot conclude without congratulating your Excellency upon an event, which widens the basis of our independence, and leads to an immediate connexion with a powerful nation, whose alliance a variety of circumstances in their origin and government render extremely desirable.
Your letter of the 13th of May did not come to hand until some time in August, before the receipt of which his Excellency, General Washington, had communicated the agreeable information of the birth of a Dauphin, and directed that some public declaration of our feelings should be had upon the occasion. Accordingly, on the 4th of July, we fired a _feu de joie_, and gave every testimony in our power of the pleasure and happiness we felt upon an event so interesting to our good ally, and so intimately connected with the welfare of America; and I beg you will communicate to the Minister in Philadelphia, how sincerely the officers of this army participate in the general joy, which this public blessing diffuses through France and America.
It is with infinite satisfaction that I inform you, that the enemy is making every preparation for the evacuation of Charleston, the last and only place they hold in any of the Southern United States.
I hope a general peace will follow, and that America may long enjoy, without interruption, the blessings she has been so long contending for.