AFTER THREE YEARS of distinguished service in the Continental Con-
gress, John Adams was selected in the fall of 1777 to join Benjamin
Franklin and Arthur Lee as a commissioner at the Court of Ver-
sailles. Adams arrived in France on April 1, 1778, and discovered
that the principal business of his mission, the negotiation of treaties
of amity and commerce, had already been accomplished. He found,
nevertheless, plenty to occupy him in the French capital. Adams
had been a regular writer in the American newspapers on the con-
troversy with Great Britain and welcomed the invitation of Edmé
Jacques Genet, the publisher of a newspaper controlled by the
French Foreign Ministry -- Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amé+00AD
rique -- to join Franklin and Lee as a contributor to his journal. As
Genet explained to Adams, his "periodic work" belonged "entirely
to the American cause and to Ms. les Députés." ¹ From correspond-
ence with Genet, it is clear that Adams produced an attack against
the Carlisle Commission, a British embassy sent to the United States
to propose reconciliation as an alternative to the French Alliance,
and a proposal for French naval superiority on the coast of North
America, but what else he wrote for Affaires before returning to
America in June 1779 remains to be established (as does the extent
of Franklin's and Lee's contributions). ²

Adams was back in Paris in February 1780, bearing a commission
to negotiate peace with Great Britain. The French tried to discour-
age him from publicizing his mission for the good reason that news
of it would solidify the position of Lord North's ministry by permit-
ting it to claim that its uncompromising policies were driving the
Americans to sue for peace. Adams, however, was determined to
inform the British government and people of his powers. The only
way to reach them was through the London newspapers. Someone
with connections in the British newspaper world must be found to

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