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Papers of John Adams: Jan.-Sept. 1781

John Adams

出版	Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004
主題	Biography & Autobiography / HistoricalBiography & Autobiography / Presidents & Heads of StateHistory / GeneralHistory / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)Political Science / General
ISBN	06740113689780674011366
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=Bis0AQAAMAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

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VOLUMES 1 AND 2. Include letters to and from friends and colleagues, reports of committees on which he served, his polemical writings, published and unpublished, and state papers to which he made a contribution -- VOLUMES 3 AND 4. Military affairs, a source of never-ending concern, provide some of the most fascinating subjects, including several accounts of the Battle of Bunker Hill, assessments of various high-ranking officers, and complaints about the behavior of the riflemen sent from three states southward to aid the Massachusetts troops -- VOLUMES 5 AND 6 and VOLUMES 7 AND 8. These volumes provide an unparalleled account of the conduct of American diplomacy in the early years of the republic, while the war with Britain continued and after the treaty of alliance with France was signed. Legal and constitutional scholars will find Volume 8 of particular interest. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, drafted by John Adams in 1779, served as a crucial source for the Constitution of the United States; today it is the oldest written constitution in the world still in effect. The earliest surviving version of Adams' text, the Report of a Constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is here published with full annotation for the first time -- VOLUMES 9 AND 10. These volumes chronicle John Adams' efforts to convince the British people and their leaders that Britain's economic survival demanded an immediate peace; his "snarling growling" debate with the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, over the proper Franco-American relationship; and his struggle to obtain a loan in the Netherlands, where policies were dictated by Mammon rather than republican virtue. Adams' writings, diplomatic dispatches, and personal correspondence all make clear the scope of his intelligence gathering and his propaganda efforts in the British, French, and Dutch press -- VOLUME 11. In mid-March 1781, John Adams received his commission and instructions as minister to the Netherlands and embarked on the boldest initiative of his diplomatic career. Disappointed by the lack of interest shown by Dutch investors in his efforts to raise a loan for the United States, Adams changed his tactics, and in a memorial made a forthright appeal to the States General of the Netherlands for immediate recognition of the United States. Published in Dutch, English, and French, it offered all of Europe a radical vision of the ordinary citizen's role in determining political events. In this volume, for the first time, the circumstances and reasoning behind Adams's bold moves in the spring of 1781 are presented in full -- VOLUME 12. This volume chronicles John Adams's efforts, against great odds, to achieve formal recognition of the new United States. The documents include his vigorous response to criticism of his seemingly unorthodox methods by those who would have preferred that he pursue a different course, including Congress's newly appointed secretary for foreign affairs, Robert R. Livingston -- VOLUME 13. John Adams was a shrewd observer of the political and diplomatic world in which he functioned and his comments on events and personalities remain the most candid and revealing of any American in Europe. In 1782, Adams focused his energies on raising a loan from Dutch bankers and negotiating a Dutch-American commercial treaty. This volume chronicles Adams's efforts to achieve these objectives, but it also provides an unparalleled view of eighteenth-century American diplomacy on the eve of a peace settlement ending the eight-year war of the American Revolution -- VOLUME 14. John Adams reached Paris on October 26, 1782, for the final act of the American Revolution: the peace treaty. This volume chronicles his role in the negotiations and the decision to conclude a peace separate from France -- VOLUME 15. On September 3, 1783, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay signed the definitive Anglo-American peace treaty. Adams and his colleagues strived to establish a viable relationship between the new nation and its largest trading partner but were stymied by rising British anti-Americanism. Adams's diplomatic efforts were also complicated by domestic turmoil: when bills far exceeding the funds available for their redemption were sent to Europe, he was forced to undertake a dangerous winter journey to the Netherlands to raise a new loan and save the United States from financial disaster -- VOLUME 16. John Adams, with Franklin and Jefferson, formed a joint commission to conclude commercial treaties with the nations of Europe and North Africa. As minister to the Netherlands he raised a new Dutch loan to save America from financial ruin. For the first time since 1778, Adams was no longer engaged in "militia diplomacy." -- VOLUME 17. Minister to Britain John Adams was unable to enforce the peace treaty of 1783 and renew Anglo-American commerce. But he saved U.S. credit, petitioned to release impressed sailors, saw the Prussian-American treaty ratified, and laid the groundwork for negotiations with the Barbary States -- VOLUME 18. The final volume of the Papers of John Adams wholly devoted to John Adams' diplomatic career. It chronicles fourteen months of his tenure as minister to Great Britain and his joint commission, with Thomas Jefferson, to negotiate treaties with Europe and North Africa. With respect to Britain, Adams found it impossible to do "any Thing Satisfactory, with this Nation," and the volume ends with his decision to resign his posts. His diplomatic efforts, Adams thought, were too much akin to "making brick without straw." John Adams' ministerial efforts in London were disappointing, but other aspects of his life were not. He and Jefferson failed to finalize treaties with Portugal and Great Britain, but they did, through agent Thomas Barclay, conclude a treaty with Morocco. Barclay's letters are the earliest and most evocative American accounts of that region. Adams witnessed the marriage of his daughter, Abigail 2d, to William Stephens Smith, promoted the ordination of American Episcopal bishops, and toured the English countryside, first with Thomas Jefferson and then with his family. Most significant perhaps was the publication of the first volume of Adams' Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. This work is often attributed to concern over Shays' Rebellion, of which Adams knew little when he began drafting. In fact, it was Adams' summer 1786 visit to the Netherlands that provoked his work. There, Dutch Patriot friends, involved in their own revolution, expressed interest in seeing "upon paper" his remarks "respecting Government."