From John Paul Jones (unpublished)
Amsterdam Decr. 27. 1789.
Dear Sir,

The enclosed documents, from my Friend the Count de Segur Minister Plenipotentiary of France at St. Petersburg, will explain to you in some degree my reasons for leaving Russia, and the danger to which I was exposed by the dark Intrigues and mean Subterfuges of asiatic Jealousy and Malice. Your former Friendship for me, which I remember with particular satisfaction and have ever been ambitious to merit, will I am sure be exerted in the Kind use you will make of the three Peices I now send you, for my justification in the Eyes of my Friends in America, whose good opinion is dearer to me than any thing else. I wrote to the Empress from Warsaw in the beginning of October, with a Copy of my Journal; which will shew her Majesté how much she has been deceived by the account she had of our Maritime operations last Campagne. I can easily prove to the World that I have been treated unjustly; but I intend to remain silent at least till I know the fate of my Journal.

I shall remain in Europe till after the opening of the next Campagne and perhaps longer before I return to America. From the troubles in Brabant and the measures now pursuing by the King of Prussia I presume that Peace is yet a distant Object, and that the Baltic will witness warmer work than it has yet done. On the death of Admiral Grieg, I was last year called from the Black Sea, by the Empress, to command a Squadron in the Baltic. This set the invention of all my Enemys and Rivals at work, and the event has proved that the Empress cannot always do as she pleases. If you do me the favor to write to me, my address is under cover à Messieurs N. and J. Van-Staphorst and Hubbard à Amsterdam. I am with Sincere Affection Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble Servant

Paul Jones

His Excellency B. Franklin Esquire &c. &c. Philadelphia.
nb. It is this day Ten Years since I left the Texel in the Alliance.
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