354 WORK IN WAR-TIME CHAP. 



what [I] may offer will just have the [like] fate with our former 

 endeavours. 



Two years ago, nay one year, I believe we should neither 

 of us have hesitated to go even to America, and had our 

 powers been then what they ought to have been at the former 

 period we should have prevented independency, and at the 

 latter, [established] a firm commercial compact, and prevented 

 desolations that will, whilst history remains, disgrace the 

 annals of this unhappy country. Treated however as we 

 have been, I will please myself with a hope that what may 

 now be suggested by us will be better attended to, and there- 

 fore again put down the result of our conversation last night 

 as still my opinion. 



That the matter is too far advanced for any private person 

 to do the public any good is most certain. Perhaps all modes 

 of preventing the approaching calamities will be utterly 

 ineffectual. 



I still think that Lord Stormonth should leave Paris, as 

 coming home on his private affairs, or to be sent to some 

 other place. 



That another should be sent in his place one not obnoxious 

 to the Court of Versailles, nor unknown to Franklin. 



That his business should be with the latter, and his instruc- 

 tions should be only : Say to F., What measures can at this 

 juncture be adopted, most for the benefit of this country and 

 America, and these to be adopted by us, bona fide. 



A single reservation will destroy the whole, and render 

 this attempt as ineffectual as all the expedients have been 

 hitherto. 



It requires an amplitude of heart which I fear is not to be 

 met with to save us from ruin. But it must be on a ground 

 like this that we can be saved if we are [to be] so. Two 

 months ago a private person thus instructed might have done 

 everything. It must now [be] the business of a man in a 

 public and responsible character. I am thy afflicted friend, 



J- F. 



It is possible that the labours of the two Friends had 

 some influence in what followed. Stormonth was re- 

 called, and secret overtures of peace were made about 

 this time to Franklin in Paris by English emissaries, but 

 without result. 1 



1 The statement by Smyth, that Fothergill took actual part in these 

 overtures, seems to be unfounded. Smyth quotes a letter which belongs to 

 1780, and will be referred to presently. Op. cit. x. 330. 



