Adams, John

Autograph letter signed ("John Adams"), one page, Paris, 21 May 1780 to Charles W. F. Dumas, enclosing a newspaper printing of a letter (enclosure not present) allegedly written by Sir Henry Clinton to Lord George Germain, bemoaning the dismal state of British military affairs in America; mounted on ruled card, large dark water stain along center vertical fold. Folding case, panels of green moiré and marbled paper, black morocco spine, green morocco lettering pieces.

Adams unwittingly savors a forged British dispatch in this, the first known letter written to the Dutch radical by Adams alone.  Dumas, a friend of Franklin, was a schoolmaster and linguist who served as a translator for Adams. The enclosure is a newspaper printing of a letter purported to be Sir Henry Clinton's fifteenth dispatch to Lord George Germain, the British Secretary of State for America. "A privateer from Boston had the good Fortune to take the Packet bound to London, and the Mail, in which among others this letter was found. It was sent from Boston to Philadelphia and there published in a Newspaper of the 8th of April. One of these papers arrived within a few days, at L'Orient in a Vessel from Philadelphia." The letter was published in the Pennsylvania Packet of 8 April. Dumas had the letter serially published in the Gazette de Leyde on 30 May, 2 June, and 6 June, and it appeared in several London papers with little or no comment. The contents of the letter describe the deterioration of British forces against a rebel army that was growing in strength and determination, rendering the continued siege of New York untenable and an assault on Charleston doubtful. Unbeknownst to Adams, Clinton forced the surrender of Charleston on 12 May.

The letter was later discovered to be a forgery since Clinton's most recent dispatches had been published in the London papers (Dispatch No. 84, dated 9 March 1780, was published in the London Chronicle 29 April–2 May). In closing, Adams ironically remarks that the letter should be juxtaposed with Lord Germain's speech of 5 May in the House of Commons "as his Document in Support of his Assertions."  In that speech Germain exprsses his conviction that Americans had grown weary of war and desired to return to protection of the Crown.