A Century of American Diplomacy. John W. Foster
the war against the Colonies, had recently been overthrown and was succeeded by a composite ministry, whose members were divided as to the policy to be pursued in the negotiations. The House of Commons had de- clared in favor of peace, even at the price of independ- ence, but King George was still obstinately refusing such conditions.
Between the appointment of the commissioners and the conclusion of the negotiations, three important military events occurred which had an important influ- ence on the final result. The first, the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, in October, 1781, practically decided the independence of the Colonies. The sec- ond, the victory of Rodney in the West Indies over the French fleet, in May, 1782, and, third, the raising of the siege of Gibraltar by the English, in September, 1782, made less exacting the demands of France and Spain, and enabled the American commissioners more
THE TREATY OF PEACE AND INDEPENDENCE. 57
easily to counteract their plans for dwarfing the young nation.
Mr. Richard Oswald was sent to Paris in April, 1782, by Shelburne, Minister of the Colonies, on a pre- liminary and confidential mission to Franklin. As he was the person who ultimately signed the provisional treaty of peace, it will be of interest to know more of the man. He was possessed of no diplomatic experi- ence, and was not even in public life. At one time he had held a subordinate position in the Ministry of Commerce (Board of Trade), but was then a retired Scotch merchant, and by marriage and purchase had acquired large interests in America. Having spent several years in business there, he was frequently con- sulted during the war by the British ministry. His sympathy for the Colonies may be inferred from the fact that he furnished bail to the amount of $250,000 for Henry Laurens, one of the Peace Commissioners, then confined in the Tower of London. At the time of his appointment he was seventy-seven years old, just Frank- lin's age. He was a disciple of Adam Smith, he had won the esteem of Shelburne, and had by correspond- ence continued a warm friendship with Franklin formed during the latter's long residence in England. Shel- burne, responding to Franklin's letter, to which refer- ence has already been made, writes : " Your letter … has made me send to you Mr. Oswald. I have had a longer acquaintance with him, than I even had the pleasure to have with you. I believe him an honest man, and, after consulting some of our common friends, I have thought him the fittest for the purpose. He is a paci-
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fical man and conversant in these negotiations, which are most interesting to mankind. This has made me prefer him to any of our speculative friends, or to any person of higher rank. He is fully apprised of my mind, and you may give full credit to everything he assures you of. At the same time, if any other chan- nel occurs to you, I am ready to embrace it. I wish to retain the same simplicity and good faith which sub- sisted between us in transactions of less importance." 1
It is due to the British minister and negotiator to say that throughout the negotiations the spirit expressed in this letter was maintained, and their conduct was in marked contrast to that of the Colonies' allies, France and Spain. There existed, however, a divergence of views in the British cabinet, and while Oswald was designated by Shelburne to confer with Franklin, Fox, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent Grenville over to Paris to watch the proceedings on his behalf. As the British government had no diplomatic representative in Paris, Grenville resorted to the good offices of Franklin to secure him an audience with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Accompanying him to Versailles, says Ban- croft, " The dismissed Postmaster-General for America, at the request of the British Secretary of State, intro- duced the son of the author of the American Stamp Act as the British plenipotentiary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Bourbon king. Statesmen at Paris and Vienna were amused on hearing that the envoy of the ' rebel ' olonies was become ' the introducer ' of the representative of Great Britain at the court of Ver- sailles." 2
5 Dip. Cor. Rev. 536. 2 10 Bancroft's U. S. (ed. 1874) p. 542.
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Oswald carried back with him to London the views of Franklin respecting terms of peace, and a memoran- dum suggesting the cession of Canada to the United States and compensation to the loyalists out of the sale of its public lands. 1 This proposition as to Canada is cited as an evidence of the great foresight of Franklin, and it has been said that if he had been properly sup- ported by his colleagues, Adams and Jay, Canada would have been then included in American territory; but I have been unable to find any substantial basis for such a statement in the history of the negotiations. It ap- pears that Oswald not only approved of the proposition, but laid it before Shelburne; but there is no evidence that it was ever considered by the British cabinet, and nothing further was heard of it during the negotiations.
While these proceedings were in progress, Jay ar- rived in Paris in June, 1782. He appears to have been very favorably impressed at first with his residence in Paris. He writes : " What I have seen of France pleases me exceedingly. … No people understand doing civil things as well as the French; " 2 but intercourse with the officials brought about a revulsion of feeling. Four months later Adams arrived in Paris to join in the ne- gotiations, and he records in his diary : " Mr. Jay likes Frenchmen as little as Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard did (who were openly hostile). He says they are not a moral people; they know not what it is; he don't like any Frenchman. … Our allies don't play fair, he told me." Of Franklin, Mr. Jay, on his arrival, wrote :
1 5 Dip. Cor. Rev. 541. 2 Ib. 523.
8 3 J. Adams's Works, 303.
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" His mind appears more vigorous than that of any man of his age I have known. He certainly is a valuable minister and an agreeable companion." l Franklin was then seventy-six and Jay thirty-seven years of age.
Oswald had returned from London, bringing with him a commission to treat with any commissioners named by the Colonies. Jay objected to the terms of the com- mission, and insisted that it should specially mention the United States, and make it clear that he was not to treat with them as Colonies. Franklin thought the commission was sufficient to justify negotiations, and he was strongly supported in this view by Vergennes. But Jay was unmoved. Referring to the arguments advanced by Vergennes, he wrote : " Neither of these considerations had weight with me; for as to the first, I could not conceive of any event which would render it proper, and therefore possible, for America to treat in any other character than as an independent nation; and as to the second, I could not believe Congress in- tended we should follow any advice which might be repugnant to their dignity and interest." 2 Jay had his way, and Oswald wrote to Shelburne : " The American commissioners will not move a step until independence is acknowledged."
But new complications arose. First, Rayneval, pri- vate secretary to Vergennes, who had been designated to confer with Jay as to the terms of peace, revealed the fact that France favored giving Spain both sides of the Mississippi up to 31; the territory from thence east of the Mississippi and up to the Ohio to be an Indian
i 5 Dip. Cor. Rev. 517. 2 6 Ib. 20.
Pink. … British.
Green . . United States.
Yellow … Spanish. White … Indian Territory under Spanish or American tection, according as it lies West or East of the Yellow-Green inter-
naueral secting line.
Scale of English Miles
100 60 .100 200 800
Longitude West
from Greenwich
MAP OF NORTH AMERICA,
Showing the Boundaries of the UNITED STATES, CANADA, and the SPANISH POSSES- SIONS, according to the proposals of the Court of France in I 782.
THE TREATY OF PEACE AND INDEPENDENCE. 61
country, half under Spanish and half under an American protectorate; and all north and west of the Ohio to be retained by Great Britain; thus confining the Colonies to the strip between the Atlantic and the Alleghanies. Second, an intercepted letter of Marbois, secretary of the French legation in Philadelphia, was put by the British into Jay's hands, showing surprise at and disap- proval of the claims of the Colonies as to the territory and the fisheries,