ably expect honest men to be. We are now perfectly resolved to come to an explanation upon the business, if it is possible so to do without betraying any confidence reposed in me by you, or in you by others. The two principal points which occur are the paper relative to Canada, of which I had never heard till I received your letter, and the intended investment of Mr. Oswald with full powers, which was certainly meant for the purpose of diverting Franklin's confidence from you into another channel. With these two points we wish to charge Shelburne directly; but pressing as the thing is, and interesting as it is both to our situations and to the affairs of the public, which I fear are irretrievably injured by this intrigue, and which must be ruined if it is suffered to go on, we are resolved not to stir a step till we hear again from you, and know precisely how far we are at liberty to make use of what you have discovered. If this matter should produce a rupture, and consequently become more or less the subject

of public discussion, I am sensible the Canada paper cannot 44 be mentioned by name; but might it not be said that we had discovered that Shelburne had withheld from our knowledge matters of importance to the negotiation? ..

You see what is our object, and you can easily judge what sort of evidence will be most useful to us. When the object is attained, that is, when the duplicity is proved, to what consequences we ought to drive, whether to an absolute rupture, or merely to the recal of Oswald and the simplification of this negotiation, is a point that may be afterwards considered. I own I incline to the more decisive measure, and So, I think, do those with whom I must act in concert.

The King of Prussia is certainly inclined to be our friend, but he urges and presses to make peace if possible; if we could once bring the treaty to such a point as the stating the demands on each side to him, and we could have his approbation for breaking it off, I think it not impossible but the best consequences might follow; and with regard to North America, it is surely clear to demonstration, that it is of infinite consequence that it should be publicly understood who is to blame if the war continues. I do hope, therefore, that you will at all events stay long enough to make your propositions, and to call upon them to make others in return.

No. 36.-1782, June 10: Extract from letter, Mr. Fox to Mr.

Grenville.

With respect to the contents of your last dispatch, you certainly conceive it rightly, that you are no longer to mention the Independence of America as a cession to France, or as a conditional article of a general treaty; but at the same time you will not fail to observe to the French Ministry that the Independence of America is proposed to be acknowledged, and to remark that this being done spontaneously, which they have at different times and particularly in their last answer to the Imperial Courts emphatically called the object of the war, little difficulty ought to remain with regard to other points which may be considered rather as collateral and incidental than as principal in the present dispute. . . .

No. 37.-1782, June 13: Extract from letter, Mr. Adams (at The Hague) to Dr. Franklin.

The permanent friendship of the Dutch may be easily obtained by the United States, that of England never; it is gone with the days before the flood. If we ever enjoy the smallest degree of sincere friendship again from England I am totally incapable of ■ seeing the character of a nation or the connexion of things; which, however, may be the case, for what I know. . . .

No. 38.-1782, June 15: Extract from Dr. Franklin's Journal.

Mr. Oswald left me about noon, and soon after Mr. Granville came, and acquainted me with the return of his courier, and that he had brought the full powers. That he, Mr. Grenville, had been at Versailles and left a copy with Count de Vergennes. That the instrument was in the same terms with the former, except that after the power to treat with the King of France, or his ministers, there was an addition of words, importing a power to treat with the ministers of any other prince or state whom it might concern. That Count de Vergennes had at first objected to these general words as not being particular enough, but said he would lay it before the king, and communicate it to the ministers of the belligerent powers, and that Mr. Grenville should hear from him on Monday. Mr. Grenville added that he had further informed Count de Vergennes of his being now instructed to make a proposition as a basis for the intended treaty, viz., the peace of 1763; that the proposition intended to be made under his first powers, not being then received, was now changed, and instead of proposing to allow the independence of America on condition of England's being put into the situation she was in at the peace of 1763, he was now authorised to declare the independence of America previous to the treaty as a voluntary act, and to propose separately as a basis the treaty of 1763. This also Count de Vergennes undertook to lay before the king and communicate to me.

Mr. Grenville then said to me he hoped all difficulties were now removed and that we might proceed in the good work. I asked him if the enabling bill was passed. He said no; it passed the Commons, and had been once read in the House of Lords, but was not yet completed. I remarked that the usual time approached for the prorogation of Parliament, and possibly this business might be omitted. He said there was no danger of that; the Parliament would not rise this year till the middle of July; the India affairs had put back other business which must be done, and would require a prolongation of the session till that time. I then observed to him that, though we

Americans considered ourselves as a distinct independent power 45 or state, yet, as the British Government had always hitherto

affected to consider us only as rebellious subjects and as the enabling act was not yet passed, I did not think it could be fairly supposed that his court intended, by the general words any other prince or state, to include a people whom they did not allow to be a state, and that, therefore I doubted the sufficiency of his power as to

treating with America, though it might be good as to Spain and Holland. He replied that he himself had no doubt of the sufficiency of his power and was willing to act upon it. I then desired to have a copy of the power, which he accordingly promised me.

He would have entered into conversation on the topic of reconciliation, but I chose still to waive it till I should find the negociation more certainly commenced.

No. 39.-1782, June 16-21: Extract from letter, Mr. Grenville to Mr. Fox.

[Private.]

PARIS, June 16th, 1782. DEAR CHARLES: I received your letter of the 10th, by Ogg, on the night of the 14th, and would have sent him back as immediately as you seemed to wish, but having no other messenger to carry back Mons. de Vergennes answer, I was obliged to keep him till he could be the bearer of that likewise. I can easily conceive the embarrassment occasioned to you by my letter, and have so much confidence in the honour of the persons to whom you communicated it, that I am not under the smallest uneasiness on that account. The explanation, however, that you wish to come to, certainly has its difficulties, and amongst them some so sacred that unless they can be kept altogether clear, you cannot but agree with me in thinking that they must be buried at least in silence, though not in oblivion. In order, therefore, that you may see into every part of this business, I will, as you desire, state in the most explicit manner the circumstances of it, as far as I think they affect any confidence reposed in me. In the first place, then, you will have observed that although Franklin has actually made me no confidence (owing as I believe without doubt to the reasons I stated,) yet as the communication he had said he would make to me, was of the most confidential nature, and in full trust that the subjects which he should mention should not be given as propositions coming from him, I think it would be a breach of that confidence to inake it known even that he had promised to hold such a conversation with me; and therefore to charge Lord Shelburne with having diverted from me that expected communication, would be to proclaim Franklin's promise to me, which promise, though it has not been followed up, I cannot think myself at liberty to quote. The delicacy of Franklin's situation with respect to the French court, was, as he said, the ground of the caution which he observed; and which nevertheless he was inclined to risque in my trust; he would certainly have both to repent and to complain, if anything on my part should lead to betray even the confidential disposition he had entertained. These reasons you will I am sure agree with me in considering as decisive against any mention being to be made of the expectations I had formed from the conversations I was to have had with Franklin. The Canada paper is not perhaps quite under the same circumstances: the only knowledge I have of it is from Oswald. and as I before told you, I had it from him at a moment when I fancy he apprehended that I had heard or should hear of it from Franklin, no other reason can account for his not mentioning it from the end of April till the 31st of May; he told it me under no express limitation of confidence: the words in which he introduced it were

"I think it right you should know"; and I am perfectly sure that he asked from me no engagement of secresy, nor do I conceive myself under any with regard to him, other than that general secresy which is always attached to business of a confidential nature, such as was the business I related to you. I recollect asking if he had showed the paper to you; he said no, but did not add any injunction to me not to do so, and indeed if he had, I should have stated to him the impossibility of my keeping from you a circumstance of that importance, or of my becoming by my silence in it a separate party to a business which it was my duty fully and entirely to lay before you and receive from you. Nor indeed at this moment is the knowledge of it confined to Lord Shelburne, as I am pretty sure Oswald told me that Lord Ashburton was with Lord Shelburne when he, Oswald, asked if he might give any answer to Franklin about the paper, or rather observed that he supposed he could not then have any answer to it. Under these circumstances the difficulty with regard to the Canada paper, of which I have no copy, lies possibly more in the indelicacy, and perhaps bad policy, of bringing forward Franklin where he wished so much not to appear than in quoting it from me. I do not wish to be quoted if there exists the least doubt whether I should; but I cannot more exactly explain to you the whole extent of that doubt, than by showing you that it does not exist in any specific obligation on my part, but only in the nature of what was told to me; the subject itself carrying with it, as you will see, many reasons for secresy, and every mark of it in the manner of conducting it: but as to positive engagement or obligation upon this subject I have none. The remaining circumstance of the intention mentioned to Mr. Oswald by Lord Shelburne of giving him a commission if it should be necessary, stands altogether clear of the slightest shade of difficulty upon the point of confidence: indeed at the time I wrote you word of it I did not imagine I was informing you of anything new or unknown to you, and only so far meant to dwell upon it as to regret its happening precisely at the instant when it was most important it should not. I apprehended that Lord Shelburne might have already expressed such an intention to the rest of the King's Ministers, upon the ground of the American share of this business; which ground, in the present stage of it, I thought possibly you had not found it easy to object to. In this idea you will find that I have written, and in this idea it was that Lord Fitzwilliam's appointment occurred to me, not to prevent a clandestine negotiation, but to unite a separated one, always imagining that you knew of, but did not resist, the intended

commission to Mr. Oswald, and therefore hinting the expedi46 ency of superseding it, by giving to another person an appoint

ment of such rank and magnitude as should include a power which it seems neither for the public interest, nor yours and your friends' interests, to leave separate and distinct. To return, however, to the point of confidence: upon this last subject, there is none, and you are certainly at full liberty to proclaim at Charing Cross, that Lord Shelburne told Mr. Oswald he supposed he would not object to a commission, if it should be necessary, and that, since his last return to Paris, Mr. Oswald has told me he found it very much Franklin's wish likewise. If I may repeat, therefore, in a few words, what I have tried to express to you in a good many, it is, that as to Franklin's first intention of a private and confidential communication

with me, I hold myself so engaged in secresy to him, that I think it would be a breach of confidence in me to have that intention at all spoken of. As to the Canada paper, I leave it, with the comment I have made upon it, altogether to your discretion; and as to the intended commission, you are certainly at full liberty to say of it what you please. I have it not in my power to give you any additional proofs of sinister management in this business. I seldom see Oswald, though upon good terms with him, and have seen Franklin, since Oswald's coming, but once, when he was as silent as ever, notwithstanding my reminding him of his promise, so that I cannot but think that business altogether irretrievable; but neither do I know what you will gain by forcing Oswald's return; indeed, I am inclined to think it might be much more prudent to save appearances by leaving him here till you shall have completed your purpose of receiving the propositions you wish, or the refusal you wish, from Versailles. Perhaps, politically speaking, you may not think it wise to make the conduct, or rather misconduct, of a foreign negotiation, the ground of a domestic rupture, which may betray too much weakness and disunion; but this is too delicate a subject for me to say anything upon, more than to assure you, that whatever is your determination about it, you will not find me shrink from the part I have to take in it. And one word here about the desire I have expressed to return to England. It is impossible not to say that I feel that desire in the strongest degree. I would not speak peevishly about my disappointment in the unlucky check I have met with, but I think you will agree, that the real service it might, perhaps, have been my good fortune to have been assisting in, is by that check completely annihilated, nor can any step now taken recover or retrieve it; and that consideration weighs pretty heavily in a situation in itself not agreeable to me: but if I repeat this now, it is to keep you awake to the earnest solicitations I make of returning in the first moment you may think it practicable; till then, you need have no apprehension of seeing me, but may trust that no personal motives, however strong, can weigh with me against the important reasons, as well as the desire you express, for my continuing something longer at Paris. I am writing to you on the 16th, waiting impatiently for M. de Vergennes' answer, which he gave me reason to hope I shall have to-morrow.

June 21st. I have been waiting day after day, and have not got my answer till a few hours ago. I am sorry I have kept you so long, but you see it was impossible to avoid it.

Oswald affects to consider me as fully authorised now, but I believe expects different news as soon as the Independence Bill has passed. Yet I cannot help thinking you had better leave him where he is; his going away will mend nothing. Adieu.

Ever very affectionately yours,

THOMAS GRENVILLE.

No. 40.-1782, June 17: Extract from Dr. Franklin's Journal.

I find myself in some perplexity with regard to these two negociators. Mr. Oswald appears to have been the choice of Lord Shelburne, Mr. Grenville that of Mr. Secretary Fox. Lord Shelburne is said to have lately acquired much of the King's confidence. Mr. Fox