DOCUMENTS BEABING ON TREATY OF 1783. 59 



the disposition of his court to treat for a general peace, and at Paris, 

 and he announced Mr. Grenville. . . . 



In our return Mr. Oswald repeated to me his opinion that the 

 affair of Canada would be settled to our satisfaction, and his wish 

 that it might not be mentioned till towards the end of the treaty. . . , 



No. 23. 1782, May 6: Extract from Mr. Oswald? s Minutes. 



. . . After dinner, the doctor took out Lord Shelburne's letter to 

 him and read that part, wherein his Lordship says that I would ex- 

 plain to him his sentiments on the subject of the proposed accom- 

 modation. . . . 



Whether from the one motive or the other, I won't pretend to say, 

 but it appeared to me that a certain moderation seems to prevail in 

 the minds of those Commissioners, which I did not expect in relation 

 to the Colonies which had not revolted; for in all the conversa- 

 37 tion I have had with Mr. Franklin or Mr. Laurens, nothing 

 had ever passed to shew their intention or inclination to dis- 

 pute our right to the possession of those Colonies. But on the con- 

 trary, when accidentally mentioned, it was alwise in a way as if they 

 indisputably remained on the ancient footing, which I own I was 

 surprised at. And had I been an American, acting in the same char- 

 acter as those Commissioners, I should have held a different language 

 to those of Great Britain, and would have plainly told them that for 

 the sake of the future peace of America, they must entirely quit pos- 

 session of every part of that continent, so as the whole might be 

 brought under the cover of one and the same political constitution, 

 and so must include under the head of independence, to make it real 

 and complete, all Nova Scotia, Canada, Newfoundland and East 

 Florida. That this must have been granted if insisted on, I think is 

 past all doubt, considering the present unhappy situation of things. 

 But, as I have said, nothing of that tendency was ever insinuated by 

 any of the said gentlemen, but, on the contrary an acknowledged 

 admission of our original right to those Colonies being supposed as 

 unimpeachable. . . . 



No. 24. 1788, May H: Extract from letter, Mr. Grenville to Mr. Fox. 



. . . He [Mr. Franklin] had too once before said, that, in forming 

 a treaty there should, he thought, without doubt be a difference in a 

 treaty between England and America, and one between England and 

 France, that always had been at enmity. In these expressions, as 

 well as in a former one, where he rested much upon the great effect 

 that would be obtained by some things being done spontaneously 

 from England, I think you will perhaps trace something not alto- 

 gether wide of those ideas, which I suppose may have weighed with 

 him. , 



