success: and that this affair, of an importance beyond all expression for our common country, may be resolved and decided by unanimous suffrages, and in preference to every particular interest.
ULTERIOUR ADDRESS.
On the 9th January, 1782, Mr. ADAMS waited on the President VAN DEN SANDHEUVEL, and addressed him as follows.
On the fourth of May, I had the honour of a conference with the President of their High Mightinesses, in which I informed him, that I had received from the United States of America a commission, with full powers and instructions to propose and conclude a treaty of amity and commerce, between the said United States of America and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
At the same conference, I had the honour to demand an audience of their High Mightinesses, in order to present to them my letters of credence and full powers.
The President assured me, that he would make report of all that I had said to him to their High Mightinesses, in order that it might be transmitted to the several members of the sovereignty of this country, for their deliberations and decisions.--I have not yet been honoured with an answer. I now do myself the honour to wait on you, Sir, to demand, as I do, a categorical answer, that I may be able to transmit it to the United States of America.
GUELDERLAND.
In an extraordinary assembly of the county of Zutphen, held at Nimeguen the 23d of February, 1782, the following measures were taken.
After the report of the Committee of this Province to the Generality, laid this day upon the table, relative to what passed in the precedent assembly, and after the examination of an extract of the register of the resolutions of their High Mightinesses the States General of the Low Countries, of the ninth of last month, in relation to the Ulteriour Address of Mr. Adams to the President of their High Mightinesses, concerning the presentation of his letters of credence to their High Mightinesses, in behalf of the United States of America, demanding a categorical answer, whereof the Lords the Deputies of the respective Provinces have taken copies; the Baron Robert Jasper van der Capellen de Marsch, first by word of mouth, and afterwards in writing, proposed, and insisted, at the assembly of this Quarter, that, at present, and without delay, we should make a point of deliberation, and that we should make upon the table the necessary overture, conceived more at length, in the advice of this nobleman, inserted in these terms:
NOBLE AND MIGHTY LORDS!