DOCUMENTS BEABING ON TREATY OP 1183. 65 



affairs or of the French language, which probably would be used in 

 treating; if, therefore, he accepted of any commission it should be 

 that of treating with America. I told him I would write to Lord 

 Shelburne on the subject; but Mr. Grenville having some time since 

 despatched a courier, partly on account of the commission, who was 

 not yet returned, I thought it well to wait a few days till we could 

 see what answer he would bring or what measures were taken. This 

 he approved of. 



The truth is, he appears so good and so reasonable a man that, 

 though I have no objection to Mr. Grenville, I should be loath to 

 lose Mr. Oswald. He seems to have nothing at heart but the good 

 of mankind and putting a stop to mischief ; the other, a young states- 

 man, may be supposed to have naturally a little ambition of recom- 

 mending himself as an able negociator. 



No. 31. 178%, June 4' Extract from letter, Mr. Grenville to Mr. Fox. 



. . . You will easily see from the tenor of the correspondence 

 we have hitherto had, that what little use I could be of to you here, 

 appeared to me to be in the communication that I had with Franklin. 

 I considered the rest of the negotiation as dependent upon that, and 

 the only possible immediate advantages which were to be expected, 

 seemed to me to rest in the jealousy which the French Court would 

 entertain of not being thoroughly supported in everything by Amer- 

 ica. The degree of confidence which Franklin seemed inclined to 

 place in me, and which he expressed to me, more than once, in the 

 strongest terms, very much favoured this idea, and encouraged me in 

 wishing to learn from him what might be, in future, ground for a 

 partial connection between England and America; I say in future, 

 because I have never hitherto much believed in any treaty of the 

 year 1782, and my expectation, even from the strongest of Franklin's 

 expressions, was not of an immediate turn in our favour, or any 

 positive advantage from the Commissioners in Europe, till the peo- 

 ple of America should cry out to them, from seeing that England 

 was meeting their wishes. It was in this light, too, that I saw room 

 to hope for some good effects from a voluntary offer of unconditional 

 independence to America ; a chance which looked the more tempting, 

 as I own I considered the sacrifice as but a small one, and such as, 

 had I been an American, I had thought myself little obliged to Great 

 Britain in this moment for granting, except from an idea that if it 

 was an article of treaty, it would have been as much given by France 

 as by England. 



I repeat this only to remind you that, from these considerations, 

 the whole of my attention has been given to Franklin, and that I 

 should have considered myself as losing my time here, if it had not 

 been directed to that subject. I believe I told you in my last that I 

 had very sanguine expectations of Franklin's being inclined to speak 

 out, when I should see him next; indeed, he expressly told me, that 

 he would think over all the points likely to establish a solid recon- 

 ciliation between England and America, and that he would 

 41 write his mind upon them in order that we might examine 

 them together more in order, confiding, as he said, in me, that 



