* * *

explicit with you, and tell you plainly, that I never had such an idea; and I believe there is not a man in America, a few English Tories excepted, that would not spurn at the thought of deserting a noble and generous friend, for the sake of a truce with an unjust and cruel enemy. Believe me, my dear friend, America has too much understanding, and is too sensible of the value of the world's good opinion, to forfeit it all by such perfidy. The Congress will never instruct their commissioners to obtain a peace on such ignominious terms; and though there can be but few things in which I should venture to disobey their orders, yet, if it were possible for them to give me such an order as this, I should certainly refuse to act; I should instantly renounce their commission, and banish myself forever from so infamous a country. We are a little ambitious, too, of your esteem; and, as I think we have acquired some share of it by our manner of making war with you, I trust we shall not hazard the loss of it by consenting meanly to a dishonorable peace."

In conclusion, he apologized for his warmth, and said: "Whatever may be the fate of our poor countries, let you and me die as we have lived, in peace with each other."

Not less stanch were the French ministry in adhering to the compact of 1778. Dr. Franklin, having sent a copy of his corre spondence with Hartley to the Count de Vergennes, was informed by him, that while that correspondence was in progress, Lord North had sent over a secret emissary to sound France respecting peace, and to offer advantageous propositions in case she should be disposed to treat separately. The emissary was charged to say to the English minister, "that the King of France is as desirous of peace as the King of England; and that he would accede to it as soon as he could with dignity and safety; but it is a matter of the last importance for his most Christian Majesty to know, whether the court of London is disposed to treat on equal terms with the allies of France."

So this attempt to separate the allies failed.

February 28th, one o'clock in the morning, in the House of Commons. For many hours the House had been in session, and all the great orators had spoken. The debate was upon the motion of General Conway-the same General Conway whom we saw moving the repeal of the stamp act seventeen years before-to the effect

that the reduction of the colonies by force of arms was impracticable. Lord North's majority had been falling away from him daily, until, a few days before, he had been left in a majority of a single vote. To-night the hearts of the opposition beat high with expectation of triumph. Soon after one, the cry of question became general and vehement, and, on the house dividing, General Conway carried his motion by a majority of nineteen, and so ended the American war. No sooner was the result known, says Wraxall, than "the acclamations pierced the roof, and might have been heard in Westminster Hall. Information of the event was instantly transmitted, notwithstanding the advanced hour, to his majesty, at the queen's house. Conway following up the blow, carried without any division, before the assembly adjourned, an address to the throne, soliciting the sovereign to stop the prosecution of any further hostilities against the revolted colonies, for the purpose of reducing them to obedience by force.' It was ordered to be presented by the whole house."

The same morning, Burke wrote to Franklin announcing the result, and hailing it as the almost certain harbinger of peace. The motion, he said, was the declaration of two hundred and thirty-four members, but it was the opinion, he thought, of the whole house.

The ministry, still supported by the most obstinate and unteachable of kings, indecently held out twenty days longer; the king threatening, as usual, to relinquish the crown of England, and retire to his hereditary Hanover. George IV. used to amuse his companions with the story of his father's scheme of retirement; "describing," says Lord Holland, "with more humor than filial reverence, his arrangement of the details, and, especially, of the liveries and dresses, about which he was so earnest that it amounted almost to insanity." But the poor blind king was compelled to yield, at length, and the whigs came into power towards the end of March: Fox and Lord Shelburne, secretaries of state; Conway, commander-in-chief; the Marquis of Rockingham, premier; Burke, paymaster-general; Colonel Barré, treasurer of the navy; Dunning (Franklin's old friend and counsel), a peer and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and Lord Howe, raised a step in the peerage. All of these were old friends of America and of Franklin.

The prospect was fair for an immediate peace, because all parties most earnestly desired it, and to some of them it was necessary.

Holland was, constitutionally, of Franklin's opinion, that there never was a good war, nor a bad peace. Spain had long ago ceased to be a warlike nation. France began the war embarrassed, and was now approaching exhaustion. And as to America, it was a question whether or not her army could be fed another month. Robert Morris, alarmed at the backwardness of the States in impos ing taxes, had just engaged Thomas Paine, at a secret salary of eight hundred dollars a year, to rouse them to a sense of their duty by the exercise of his pen.* With a liberal ministry in England and reasonable commissioners at Paris, what was to hinder the prompt conclusion of a tolerable peace?

*Mr. Morris left a record of this curious transaction, as follows, dated February, 1782 "Having lately had several meetings with Mr. Thomas Paine, the writer of a pamphlet, styled Common Sense, and of many other well-known political pieces, which, in the opinion of many respectable characters, have been of service to the cause of America, I thought this gentleman might become far more serviceable to the United States by being engaged to write in the pulle newspapers in support of the measures of Congress and their ministers. My assistant, Mr. Go¤verneur Morris, is clearly of the same opinion, and in all our conferences with him we have pointedly declared, that we sought the aid of his pen only in support of upright measures and a faithful administration in the service of our country. We disclaim private or partial views, self ish schemes or plans of any and every kind. We wish to draw the resources and powers of the country into action. We wish to bring into the field an army equal to the object for which we are at war. We wish to feed, clothe, move, and pay that army as they ought to be done, but we wish also to effect these on such terms as may be least burdensome to the people, at the same time that the operations shall be every way effective.

"Having these for our objects, we want the aid of an able pen to urge the Legislatures of the several States to grant sufficient taxes; to grant those taxes separate and distinct from those levied for State purposes; to put such taxes, or rather the money arising from them, in the power of Congress, from the moment of collection;

"To grant permanent revenues for discharging the interest on debts already contracted, or that may be contracted;

"To extend by a new confederation the powers of Congress, so that they may be competent to the Government of the United States, and the management of their affairs;

"To prepare the minds of the people for such restraints, and such taxes and imposts, as are absolutely necessary for their own welfare;

To comment from time to time on military transactions, so as to place in a proper point of view the bravery, good conduct, and soldiership of our officers and troops, when they deserve applause, and do the same on such conduct of such civil officers or citizens, as act conspicuously for the service of their country.

"Finding Mr. Paine well disposed for the undertaking, and observing that General Washington had twice in my company expressed his wishes that some provision could be made for that gentleman, I took an opportunity to explain my design to the General, who agreed entirely in the plan. I then communicated the same to Mr. Robert R. Livingston, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and proposed that he should join me in this business, by furnishing from his department such intelligence as might be necessary from time to time to answer the useful pur poses for which Mr. Paine is to write; and in order to reward this gentleman for his labors, and enable him to devote his time to the service of the United States, it was agreed to allow him eight hundred dollars a year, to be paid quarterly. But it was also agreed, that this allowazee should not be known to any other persons than those already mentioned, lest the publications might lose their force if it were known that the author is paid for them by government"-lip lomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, xii., p. 95.

CHAPTER XIV.

AN ATTEMPT TO NEGOTIATE.

MADAME BRILLON and her daughters-those amiable neighbors of Dr. Franklin who entertained him twice a week with tea, talk, chess, and music-spent the winter following the surrender of Cornwallis, at Nice; which was an Italian city then, but only four miles from the French frontier. Among the crowd of foreigners there, in quest of health or pleasure, was an English set, with whom Madame Brillon, who was familiar with their language, fell into a watering-place intimacy. In her letters to Franklin she wrote of her new friends, and mentioned, particularly, Lord Cholmondely, who, she said, had promised, on his return homeward, to stop at Passy, and join the circle of tea-drinkers and chess-players accustomed to assemble at her house. To Lord Cholmondely she could not but speak of Franklin and his unequaled talent for making happy those with whom he lived.

Lord Cholmondely, as it chanced, preceded Madame Brillon to Paris. Nevertheless, he introduced himself to Dr. Franklin, talked with him upon the political situation, and offered to convey a letter to his old friend, Lord Shelburne, who was about as every one supposed, to come into power. Dr. Franklin, accordingly, wrote a note to Lord Shelburne (March 22d), congratulating him upon the late triumph of the whigs in the House of Commons, and expressed the hope that it would produce a "general peace."* To give an unofficial air to this note, Franklin mentioned that Madame Helvetius had been made very happy by receiving in excellent order the gooseberry bushes which his lordship had lately sent her.

When Lord Shelburne received this letter he had become a Secretary of State. At that time, the foreign business of the British court was divided between two secretaries, one having charge of the southern department, and the other of the northern. The southern department, which included France, belonged to Mr. Fox, and the northern department, which included America, to Lord Shelburne. Lord Shelburne, therefore, could treat with Dr. Franklin, but not with the Count de Vergennes, and Mr. Fox could treat

*Franklin's own italics.

with the Count de Vergennes, but not with Dr. Franklin. If the two secretaries had been on cordial terms, and had agreed in their system of foreign politics, no great inconvenience would have arisen from this most awkward distribution of duties. Unhappily, this was not the case; they were the leaders of two "wings" of the whig party, which could unite to win a victory, but were likely to quarrel over the distribution of the spoils. Mr. Fox had, also, a personal antipathy to Lord Shelburne, and thought him insincere.

Three weeks after the departure of Lord Cholmondely from Paris, an old London friend of Dr. Franklin called upon him at Passy, and presented a stranger, Mr. Richard Oswald, who, he said, had a great desire to see Dr. Franklin. After the usual compliments and some general conversation, Mr. Oswald produced a letter from Lord Shelburne and one from Mr. Henry Laurens, both of which introduced Oswald as the confidential messenger of the British ministry. "He is fully apprised of my mind," wrote Lord Shelburne, "and you may give full credit to every thing he assures you of." Mr. Oswald was a retired London merchant of very large fortune, who had had extensive dealings with America for many years, and had friends and connections there. Mr. Laurens wrote of him to Franklin: "He is a gentleman of the strictest candor and integrity. I dare give such assurances from an experience little short of thirty years, and to add, you will be perfectly safe in conversing freely with him on the business he will introduce, a business which Mr. Oswald has disinterestedly engaged in, from motives of benevolence; and from the choice of the man a persua sion follows that the electors mean to be in earnest."

Dr. Franklin entered, at once, into political conversation with this gentleman, with a view to learn Lord Shelburne's "mind." All he could gather was, that the new ministry really meant peace, and that they were prepared to concede the independence of the United States. Mr. Oswald said that they considered the object of the war, so far as regarded France and America, as obtained; since America had won independence, and France had severed the colonies from England. What, then, he asked, was there to hinder a pacification? He intimated, however, that if France should demand concessions too humiliating to England, England could still fight, as she was yet far from having exhausted her resources. Franklin merely said, in reply, that the United States would never