228 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., PRIOR TO TREATY OP 1818 



to be ratified by itself; but may be (and His Majesty is willing shall 

 be) the first Article of the Treaty, unconditionally of any compensa- 

 tion, or equivalent to be thereafter required in the said Treaty. 

 You will observe, that the very Article of Your Instructions referred 

 to, is conformable to this Idea, as it is expressly mentioned to be 

 offered by His Majesty as the Price of Peace; and that Independence, 

 declared and ratified absolutely and irrevocably, and not depending 

 upon the event of concluding an entire Treaty, might in the end prove 

 a Treaty, for the purpo e of Independence alone, and not for a Peace 

 or Truce; to which objects all the Powers of the Act refer. 



******* 



T. TOWNSIIEND. 



Mr. Oswald to Mr. T ownshend. 



Paris 10th September 1782 

 R'. Hon bIe T. Townshend 



Sir; By the courier Rauspach who arrived here on the 3 d . I had 

 the honor of your Letter of the 1 st Instant. Upon receipt of it I 

 went out to Doctor Franklin; he askt me if I had any directions 

 relative to the point upon which the last courier had been dispatched 

 to England, regarding a previous Declaration of their Independence 

 before a commencement of Treaty. I told him I had got Instruc- 

 tions upon that head, which although they empowered me only to 

 make such Declaration as in the first Article of the Treaty, yet I 

 hoped upon a due consideration of the matter they would appear to 

 be fully satisfying. He said if there was no particular objection he 

 could wish to have a copy of that Instruction. I told him it should 

 be sent to him. He was ill at the time; and as he could not come to 

 town, he gave me a Letter to M r . Jay, desiring him to come out to 

 him in the evening. I called on that Gentleman, when, informing 

 him of the manner in which I was authorized to treat, he said he 

 could not proceed unless their Independence was previously so 

 acknowledged, as to be entirely distinct and unconnected with 

 Treaty. In the course of this conversation, and the Day thereafter, 

 a good deal was said of the same nature with what had passed on 

 former occasions relative to this subject, as advised in my Letters 

 of last month. 



Two days ago Doctor Franklin sent to me, desiring a copy of the 

 Instruction which I had promised as abovementioned. I copied 

 out the first part of your Letter of the 1 st Instant leaving out some 

 immaterial Words, and sent it inclosed in a Letter from myself, of 

 both of which Papers there is a duplicate under this cover. 



Since then I have seen M r . Jay frequently and have used every 

 argument in my Power to get him over his objections to treating 

 without a Separate and absolute acknowledgment of Independence. 

 And for that purpose I found it necessary (although unwillingly) 

 yet as of my own private opinion, to tell him that there might be a 

 doubt whether the Powers in the Act of Parliament went so far, as 

 to allow of making that Grant otherwise than as in the course of a 

 Treaty for Peace; which as you are pleased to observe, was the sole 

 object of the Act. 



