DOCUMENTS BEARING ON TREATY OF 1783. 53 



No. 15. 1782, April 6: Letter, Lord Shelburne, British Colonial 

 Secretary (in the Ministry of Lord Rockingham, which had re- 

 placed that of Lord North) to Dr. Franklin. 



LONDON, April 6, 1782. 



DEAR SIR: I have been favored with your letter, and am much 

 obliged by your remembrance. I find myself returned nearly to the 

 same situation, which you remember me to have occupied nineteen 



years ago, and I should be very glad to talk to you as I did 

 33 then, and afterwards in 1767, upon the means of promoting 



the happiness of mankind, a subject much more agreeable to 

 my nature than the best concerted plans for spreading misery and 

 devastation. I have had a high opinion of the compass of your mind 

 and of your foresight. I have often been beholden to both, and shall 

 be glad to be so again, as far as is compatible with your situation. 

 Your letter discovering the same disposition, has made me send to 

 you Mr. Oswald. I have had a longer acquaintance with him than 

 even I have had the pleasure to have with you. I believe him an 

 honest man, and, after consulting some of our common friends, I 

 have thought him the fittest for the purpose. He is a pacifical man, 

 and conversant in those negociations which are most interesting to 

 mankind. This has made me prefer him to any of our speculative 

 friends, or to any person of higher rank. He is fully apprized of 

 my mind, and you may give full credit to everything he assures you 

 of. At the same time, if any other channel occurs to you, I am ready 

 to embrace it. I wish to retain the same simplicity and good faith 

 which subsisted between us in transactions of less importance. 



I have the honour to be, &c. 



SHELBURNE. 



[1782, April 12: Rodney's Naval Victory in the West Indies.] 



No. 16. 1782, April 19: Dr. Franklin's Memorandum of a conver- 

 sation with Mr. Oswald. 



The next morning, when I had written the above letter to Lord 

 Shelburne, I went with it to Mr. Oswald's lodgings and gave it to 

 him to read before I sealed it, that in case anything might be in it 

 with which he was not satisfied, it might be corrected; but he ex- 

 pressed himself much pleased. 



In going to him [Oswald] I had also in view the entering into a 

 conversation which might draw out something of the mind of his 

 court on the subject of Canada and Nova Scotia. I had thrown some 

 loose thoughts on paper, which I intended to serve as memorandums 

 for my discourse, but without a fixed intention of showing them to 

 him. On his saying that he was obliged to me for the good opinion 

 I had expressed of him to Lord Shelburne in my letter, and assur- 

 ing me that he had entertained the same of me, I observed that I 

 perceived Lord S. had placed great confidence in him, and as we had 

 happily the same in each other we might possibly, by a free commu- 

 nication of sentiments and a previous settling of our own minds on 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 7 9 



