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[Americana] [Treaty of Paris] [Franklin, Benjamin, and John Adams and John Jay, et al.] Contemporary Manuscript Letterbook of the Peace Negotiations between the United States and Great Britain A contemporary manuscript of Benjamin Franklin John Jay, and John Adams's peace journals during their negotiations with Great Britain to end the American Revolution "Britain may amuse herself with, and therefore be embarrassed by doubts of, our title to independence, but we have no such doubts, and therefore cannot be perplexed or influenced by them" -John Jay "His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island & Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina & Georgia to be free, sovereign and independent States..." Circa late 18th-century (after 1786). Folio, 14 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (368 x 241 mm). Contemporary letterbook, containing 370 MS. pp., in one secretarial hand, comprising the peace negotiation journals of the United States peace commissioners, Benjamin Franklin (pp. 1-127), John Jay (pp. 141-250), and John Adams (pp. 253-313), being their correspondence and notes created during negotiations with Great Britain, France, and Spain, between 1782 and 1783, that would broker the Treaty of Paris (1783), ending the American Revolution. This volume also includes joint letters from the peace commissioners, as well as drafts of the provisional peace agreement between the United States and Great Britain. Eighteenth-century full reverse calf, stamped in black; rubbed and worn, front board detached, rear board starting, spine splitting; numerous emendations to text in one, or possibly two, MS. hands, throughout volume; inscription on verso of second front blank, in a different, and undetermined, MS. hand, "I believe Mr. Sparks did not see this Book at the/time he examined the Other Papers. My health being/so-bad, was unable to examine the papers/(signed with initials, but unclear)." An extremely important and unique contemporary manuscript containing the peace journals of the American delegation appointed by Congress to negotiate peace with Great Britain to end the American Revolution. "Letters were not the only means by which Adams and his colleagues sought to document and justify their actions. Benjamin Franklin kept a journal of the negotiations. John Jay wrote lengthy letters that took on the character of a journal. And John Adams had his Diary, which he kept almost daily from his arrival at Paris on 26 October 1782 through 23 January 1783. Ultimately the three men sent their chronicles of the negotiations to Congress, which received them all in mid-March." (Introduction to The Papers of John Adams Volume 14). We presume that this manuscript was created by, or for, the Office of Foreign Affairs (1781-89) or its successor, the State Department (established in July 1789). It is also possible that it was created by someone close to the American peace delegation--or someone in Congress--who would have had access to all three journals, as at that time they were not available to the public. As the author of the inscription in this volume notes, historian Jared Sparks viewed "the Other Papers" presumably linked to this volume, but because of the author's poor health, he could not grant Sparks access to this manuscript (Sparks was granted access to early diplomatic papers in preparation for his Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution). As Herbert Baxter Adams writes in The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks..., Vol. 2 (1893): "In February 1832, at the request of Mr. Livingston, then Secretary of State, Mr. Sparks made an examination of the papers in that department relating to the foreign affairs of the United States from the treaty of peace in 1783 to the adoption of the present Constitution." (p. 151). This manuscript would have functioned as a single source of reference to access the hi