Adams, John Quincy b.July II, 1767; Braintree, Massachusetts d. February 23, 1848;Washington, D.C.
John Quincy Adams served as the first U.S. minister to Prussia from 1797 to 1801. Adams, his wife, and his brother (serving as secretary of legation) arrived at Hamburg on October 26, 1797, and at Berlin on November 7 of the same year.
Two days later Count Finckenstein, one of the three Prussian foreign ministers, received him. The illness and subsequent death of King Friedrich Wilhelm II on November 16 prevented a formal reception until June 5, 1798, when Adams met Friedrich Wilhelm III. In the interim, Adams made the rounds of the diplomatic receptions in Berlin, encountering many diplomats who had known his father, John Adams (1735—1826).Adams’s mission was to secure a renewal of the Prussian-American Treaty of 1785. The new treaty had to be compatible with the Jay Treaty, signed between the United States and Great Britain in 1794. The first casualty was article 12, which stated that free ships made free goods, meaning that goods belonging to a belligerent carried in a neutral vessel were considered neutral. The principle was at the heart of American diplomacy during the American Revolution but was repudiated by the Jay Treaty. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering also ordered an expansion of the contraband list (the list of goods that neutrals could not trade with a belligerent and still be considered neutral), the removal of the mutual exemption from general embargoes, and a reversal of the ban on privateering (outfitting private vessels as warships) in the event of war between the United States and Prussia. Neither Adams nor the Prussian government was prepared to give up the principle of neutral rights— the idea that neutral nations should be able to trade in a wide variety of goods, ship the goods of other nations in their own ships, and carry belligerent goods without being subject to capture—embodied in the 1785 treaty.
Formal negotiations began in June 1798. Because there were no real controversies between the two countries, only slow communications prevented a rapid conclusion. The final treaty, signed on July 11, 1799, marked a significant revision of the 1785 treaty. Article 12 was rewritten to exclude the principle that free ships make free goods, citing a general lack of respect for the idea from the belligerent powers. Yet Prussia and the United States formally expressed the hope that with the return of peace there might be a general agreement among maritime powers protecting neutral rights. The Senate ratified the treaty on February 18, 1800, and the two nations exchanged ratifications on June 22, 1800.During his time in Berlin, Adams studied the German language by translating Christoph Martin Wieland’s Oberon. He also sought to introduce German literature and culture to Americans. To this end, he translated Friedrich von Gentz’s Der Ursprung und die Grundsatze der Amerikanischen Revolution, verglichen mit dem Ursprunge und den Grundsatzen der Franzosischen into English (Origin and Principles of the American Revolution Compared with the Origin and Principles of the French Revolution, 1800). In July 1800 Adams toured Silesia and wrote a series of letters to his brother describing the society and productions of that province (Letters on Silesia, 1801). Like many commentators before and after, Adams noted that Silesian linens were a perfect article for Prussian American trade.
Robert W Smith
See also Treaty of 1785
References and Further Reading
Adams, Henry M. Prussian-American Relations, 1775—1871. Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1960.
Adams, John Quincy. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. Vol. 1. Ed. Charles Francis Adams. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippencott, 1874.
Scott, James Brown, ed. The Treaties of 1785, 1799, and 1828 between the United States and Prussia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1918.