DOCUMENTS BEABING ON TREATY OF 1783. 133 



fish ; and also to dry and cure their fish on the shores of Nova Scotia, Cape 

 SabJe, the Isle of Sable, and on the shores of any of the unsettled bays, har- 

 bors, or creeks of Nova Scotia and the Magdalen Islands; and His Britannic 

 Majesty, and the said United States, will extend equal privileges and hospitality 

 to each other's fishermen as to his own 



Mem. All the forenoon, from eleven to three, at Mr. Oswald's, Mr. 

 Jay and I in the evening there again until near eleven. Strachey 

 is as artful and insinuating a man as they could send; he pushes 

 and presses every point as far as it can possibly go ; he is the most 

 eager, earnest, pointed spirit 



5. Tuesday, Mr. Jay likes Frenchmen as little as Mr. Lee and Mr. 

 Izard did. He says they are not a moral people ; they know not what 

 it is; he don't like any Frenchman; the Marquis de Lafayette is 

 clever, but he is a Frenchman. Our allies don't play fair, he told me; 

 they were endeavouring to deprive us of the fishery, the western lands, 

 and the navigation of the Mississippi ; they would even bargain with 

 the English to deprive us of them; they want to play the western 

 lands, Mississippi, and the whole Gulf of Mexico, into the hands of 

 Spain. 



Oswald talks of Pulteney, and a plot to divide America between 

 France and England; France to have New England. They tell a 

 story about Vergennes, and his agreeing that the English might pro- 

 pose such a division, but reserving a right to deny it all. These 

 whispers ought not to be credited by us. 



81 No. 89. 17S2< November 4' Letter, Mr. Oswald to the Ameri- 

 can Commissioners. 



PARIS, November ^, 1782 



GENTLEMEN: You may remember that from the very first begin- 

 ning of our negociations for settling a peace between Great Britain 

 and America, I insisted that you should positively stipulate for the 

 restoration of the property of all those persons under the denomina- 

 tion of loyalists or refugees, who have taken part 'with Great Britain 

 in the present war; or if the property had been resold and passed 

 into such variety of hands as to render the restoration impracticable 

 (which you asserted to be the case in many instances), you should 

 stipulate for a compensation or indemnification to those persons ade- 

 quate to their losses. To these propositions you said you could not 

 accede. Mr. Strachey, since his arrival at Paris, has most strenu- 

 ously joined me in insisting upon the said restitution, compensation, 

 or indemnification, and in laying before you every argument in favor 

 of those demands, founded upon national honor, and upon the true 

 principles of justice. These demands you must have understood to 

 extend, not only to all persons of the above mentioned description, 

 who have fled to Europe, but likewise to all those who may be now 

 in any part of North America, dwelling under the protection of His 

 Majesty's arms or otherwise. 



We have also insisted upon a mutual stipulation for a general am- 

 nesty on both sides, comprehending thereby an enlargement of all 

 persons who, on account of offences committed or supposed to be com- 

 mitted since the commencement of hostilities, may be now in confine- 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 7 14 



