soundness of his judgment, Adams was little inclined to surrender
his own views, and was ready to carry out his ideas against every
obstacle. By nature as well as by training he seems to have been
incapable of understanding the French; he was suspicious of them
and he disapproved of Franklin's popularity even as he did of his
personality.

Five Commissioners in all were named, but Thomas Jefferson and
Henry Laurens did not take part in the negotiations, so that the
only other active member was John Jay, then thirty-seven years
old and already a man of prominence in his own country. Of French
Huguenot stock and type, he was tall and slender, with somewhat
of a scholar's stoop, and was usually dressed in black. His
manners were gentle and unassuming, but his face, with its
penetrating black eyes, its aquiline nose and pointed chin,
revealed a proud and sensitive disposition. He had been sent to
the court of Spain in 1780, and there he had learned enough to
arouse his suspicious, if nothing more, of Spain's designs as
well as of the French intention to support them.

In the spring of 1782 Adams felt obliged to remain at The Hague
in order to complete the negotiations already successfully begun
for a commercial treaty with the Netherlands. Franklin, thus the
only Commissioner on the ground in Paris, began informal
negotiations alone but sent an urgent call to Jay in Spain, who
was convinced of the fruitlessness of his mission there and
promptly responded. Jay's experience in Spain and his knowledge
of Spanish hopes had led him to believe that the French were not
especially concerned about American interests but were in fact
willing to sacrifice them if necessary to placate Spain. He