DOCUMENTS BEAEING ON TREATY OF 1783. 135 



No. 91. 7182, November 5: Extract from letter, Mr. Oswald to Mr. 



Townshend. 



PARIS 5th Novem r 1782 



SIR : As this goes by Mr. Strachey, I beg leave to refer you to him 

 for what has passed between the American Commissioners and us 

 since his arrival. I need only in general say that on all the 

 82 material points in question he has from day to day taken up 

 the subjects afresh, and has enforced our pretensions by every 

 argument that reason, justice, or humanity could suggest; and even 

 sometimes to the point of almost exciting those insinuations of menace 

 which I had been so long accustomed to, as reported by me on sundry 

 occasions, and to which we had nothing to oppose of reservation on 

 our part, but an alternative which we did not think it adviseable on 

 the present occasion to offer directly to their consideration and option. 



No. 92. 1782, November 5: Letter, Mr. Strachey to the American 



Commissioners. 



PARIS, November 5, 1782. 



GENTLEMEN : Knowing the expectation of the king's ministers that 

 a full indemnity shall be provided for the whole body of refugees, 

 either by a restitution of their property or by some stipulated com- 

 pensation for their losses, and being confident, as I have repeatedly 

 assured you, that your refusal upon this point will be the great ob- 

 stacle to a conclusion and ratification of that peace, which is meant 

 as a solid, perfect, permanent reconciliation and reunion between 

 Great Britain and America, I am unwilling to leave Paris without 

 once more submitting the matter to your consideration. It affects 

 equally, in my opinion, the honor and the humanity of your country 

 and of ours. How far you will be justified in risking every favorite 

 object of America by contending against those principles is for you 

 to determine. Independence and more than a reasonable possession 

 of territory seem to be within your reach. Will you suffer them to 

 be outweighed by the gratification of resentment against individ- 

 uals? I venture to assert that such a conduct has no parallel in the 

 history of civilized nations. 



I am under the necessity of setting out by two o'clock to-day, if the 

 time is too short for your reconsideration and final determination of 

 this important point, I shall hope that you will enable Mr. Oswald 

 to despatch a messenger after me who may be with me before morn- 

 ing at Chantilly, where I propose sleeping to-night, or who may 

 overtake me before I arrive in London, with a satisfactory answer 

 to this letter. 



I have the honor to be, &c., H. STRACHEY. 



No. 93. 1782, November 6: Letter, Messrs. Adams, Franklin and Jay, 



to Mr. Strachey. 



PARIS, November 6, 1782. 



SIR : We have been honored with your favor of the 5th instant, and 

 as our answer to. a letter we received from Mr. Oswald on the name 



