The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume III Part 37

TO DAVID HARTLEY.

Pa.s.sy, April 13th, 1782.

Dear Sir,

Since mine of the 5th, I have thought further of the subject of our late letters. You were of opinion, that the late Ministry desired _sincerely_ a reconciliation with America, and with that view a separate peace with us was proposed. It happened, that, at the same time, Lord North had an emissary here to sound the French Ministers with regard to peace, and to make them very advantageous propositions, in case they would abandon America. You may judge from hence, my dear friend, what opinion I must have formed of the intentions of your Ministers. To convince you of the truth of this, I may acquaint you, that the emissary was a Mr Forth; and that the answer given him to carry back to the English Ministers, was, "_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_."

Mr Forth went off with this answer for London, but probably did not arrive till after the dismission of the Ministers that sent him. You may make any use of this information, as you judge proper. The new Ministry may see by it the principles that govern this Court; and it will convince them, I hope, that the project of dividing us is as vain as it would be to us injurious. I cannot judge what they will think or do in consequence of the answer sent by Mr Forth, if they have seen it. If they love peace, as they have persuaded the English nation and all Europe to believe, they can be under no difficulty. France has opened a path, which in my opinion they may use, without hurting the dignity of their master, or the honor of the nation. If they do not choose it, they doubtless flatter themselves, that a war may still produce successes in favor of England, that have hitherto been withheld. The crowning or frustrating such hopes belongs to Divine Providence; may G.o.d send us all more wisdom!

I am ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Pa.s.sy, April 13th, 1782.

Sir,

Enclosed with this, I send to your Excellency the packet of correspondence between Mr Hartley and me, which I promised in my last.

You will see, that we held nearly the same language; which gives me pleasure.

While Mr Hartley was making propositions to me, with the approbation or privity of Lord North, to treat separately from France, that Minister had an emissary here, a Mr Forth, formerly a Secretary of Lord Stormont's, making proposals to induce this Court to treat without us. I understand, that several sacrifices were offered to be made, and among the rest Canada to be given up to France. The substance of the answer appears in my last letter to Mr Hartley. But there is a sentence omitted in that letter, which I much liked, viz.

"_that whenever the two Crowns should come to treat, His Most Christian Majesty would show how much the engagements he might enter into were to be relied on, by his exact observance of those he already had with his present allies_."

If you have received anything in consequence of your answer by Digges, you will oblige me by communicating it. The Ministers here were much pleased with the account given them of your interview by the Amba.s.sador.

With great respect, I am, Sir, your Excellency's, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

COUNT DE VERGENNES TO B. FRANKLIN.

Translation.

Versailles, April 23d, 1782.

Sir,

The Baron de Blome has just sent me the annexed Memorial, and the only use I can make of it is to communicate it to you, persuaded that you will forward it to Congress.

I have the honor to be, &c.

DE VERGENNES.

_Complaint from Denmark against an American Privateer called the Henry._

Translation.

The Court of Denmark has been informed, that the s.h.i.+p Providence of Christiana in Norway, destined from London for St Thomas, a Danish Island, with a cargo of divers merchandise, has been stopped in the lat.i.tude of Antigua, by an American privateer called the Henry, Captain Thomas Benson, and has been conducted into a port of New England, under the pretence, that the cargo might be English property.

As this act is prejudicial to the credit, security, and liberty of the Danish flag, the underwritten has been charged, by order of his Court, to communicate the same to his Excellency the Count de Vergennes, requesting, that he will be pleased to effect, by his intervention, a prompt and entire rest.i.tution of the said vessel and cargo, with damages proportioned to the unjust detention; and that he will be kind enough at the same time to endeavor to obtain, that precise orders be given to the American privateers not to trouble in anywise the navigation and commerce of Denmark, but to respect its flag.

The Court has the greater right to expect this compliance on the part of the Americans, as they continue to enjoy every liberty, and to find every a.s.sistance in its American islands, and they will always experience the same kind treatment on the part of Denmark, provided they correspond by proceedings equally amicable.

DE BLOME.

DAVID HARTLEY TO B. FRANKLIN.

London, May 1st, 1782.

My Dear Friend,

I have received a packet from you containing several letters of various dates. As I shall probably have a safe opportunity of conveyance to you when Mr Laurens leaves this country, I am now sitting down to write to you an _omnium_ kind of letter of various matters as they occur. The late Ministry being departed, I may now speak of things more freely. I will take a sentence in one of your letters for my text. Vide yours of April 13th, 1782, in which you say, _you were of opinion that the late Ministry desired SINCERELY a reconciliation with America, and with that view a separate peace_ with us was proposed. I must qualify this sentence much before I can adopt it as my opinion. As to _reconciliation_, I never gave much credit to them for that wish. _It is a sweet expression. It certainly means MORE than peace._ The utmost I ever gave the late Ministry credit for, was a wish for peace. And I still believe, that the wisest among them grew from day to day more disposed to peace, or an abatement of the war, in proportion as they became more alarmed for their own situations and their responsibility. Had the war been more successful, I should not have expected much relenting towards peace or reconciliation. That this has always been the measure of my opinion of them, I refer you to some words in a letter from me to you, dated January 5th, 1780, for proof--"but for the point of sincerity; why, as to that, I have not much to say; I have at least expected some hold upon their _prudence_."

My argument runs thus, it is a _bargain_ for _you_ (Ministers) to be sincere _now_. Common prudence may hint to you to look to yourselves.

It has amazed me beyond measure, that this principle of common selfish _prudence_ has not had the effect which I expected. I have not been disposed to be deceived by any conciliatory professions, which I considered only as arising from prudence, and I hope that I have not led you into any deception, having so fully explained myself to you on that head. Had the American war been more prosperous on the part of the late Ministry, I do not believe the late resignation would have taken place. But it is evident, from the proposition to the Court of France, which you have communicated to me, (and which I have communicated to the present Ministry your letter) that even to the last hour some part of the late Ministry were still set upon the American war to the last extremity; and probably another more _prudent_ part of the Ministry would proceed no further; which, if it be so, may reasonably be imputed as the cause of the dissolution of the late Ministry.

These have been the arguments, which I have always driven and insisted upon with the greatest expectation of success, viz. _prudential_ arguments from the total impracticability of the war, responsibility, &c. I have been astonished beyond measure, that these arguments have not sooner had their effect. If I could give you an idea of the many conferences, which I have had upon the subject, I should tell you, that many times _Felix has trembled_. When reduced by the terror of responsibility either to renounce the American war, or to relinquish their places, they have chosen the latter; which is a most wretched and contemptible retribution either to their country or to mankind, for the desolation in which they have involved every nation, that they have ever been connected with. Peace they would not leave behind them.

Their legacy to their country, and to mankind has been, _let darkness be the burier of the dead_!

As to the proposal of a separate peace arising from a desire of _reconciliation_, it certainly was so on the part of the people of England, but on the part of the late Ministry, it probably arose from the hopes of suggesting to France ideas of some infidelity on the part of America towards them. If you should ask me, why I have _seemed_ to conspire with this, my answer is very plain. In the first place, if I could have prevailed with the late Ministry to have actually made an irrevocable offer, _on their own part_, of a separate peace to America, that very offer would in the same instant have become on their part also a consent to a general peace; because _they_ never had any wish to a separate contest with France, and America being out of the question, _they_ would have thought of nothing after that but a general peace. I never could bring them even to this. _They_ wished that _America_ should make the offer of a separate treaty, for obvious views. _My_ proposal was, that _they_ should offer irrevocable terms of peace to America. If they had meant what they pretended, and what the people of England did really desire, they would have adopted that proposition. Then the question would have come forward upon the fair and honorable construction of a treaty between France and America, _the essential and direct end_ of which was fully accomplished. When I speak of Great Britain offering irrevocable terms of peace to America, I mean such terms as would have effectually satisfied the provision of the treaty, viz. tacit independence.

I send you a paper ent.i.tled a _Breviate_, which I laid before the late Ministry, and their not having acted upon it, was a proof to me that the disposition of their heart to America was not altered, but that all their relenting arose from the impracticability of that war, and their want of success in it. But desponding as they were at last, it was not inconsistent with my expectations of their conduct, that they should make great offers to France to abandon America. It was the only weapon left in their hands. In course of negotiating with the late Ministry, I perceived their courage drooping from time to time, for the last three or four years, and it was upon that ground I gave them credit for an increasing disposition towards peace. Some dropped off, others sunk under the load of folly, and at last they all failed. My argument _ad homines_ to the late Ministry might be stated thus. _If you don't kill them, they will kill you._ But the war is impracticable _on your part_; ergo, the best thing you can do _for your own sake_ is to make _peace_. This was reasoning to men, and through men to things.

But there is no measure of rage in pride and disappointment,

Spicula coeca relinquunt Infixa venis, animasque in vulnere ponunt.

So much for the argument of the _breviate_, as far as it respected the late Ministry. It was a test which proved that they were not sincere in their professions. If they had been in earnest, to have given the war a turn towards the House of Bourbon, and to have dropped the American war, a plain road lay before them. The sentiments of the people of England were conformable to the argument of that breviate; or rather I should say, what is the real truth, that the arguments of the breviate were dictated by the notoriety of that sentiment in the people of England. My object and wish always has been to strike at the root of the evil, the American war.

If the British nation have jealousies and resentments against the House of Bourbon, yet still the first step in every case would be to rescind the American war, and not to keep it lurking in the rear, to become hereafter, in case of certain events, a reversionary war with America for unconditional terms. This reversionary war was never the object of the people of England; therefore the argument of the breviate was calculated bona fide to accomplish their views, and to discriminate the fallacious pretences of the late administration from the real wishes of the country, as expressed in the circular resolution of many counties in the year 1780, first moved at York, on March 28th, 1780. Every other principle and every mode of conduct only imply, as you very justly express it, a secret hope that war may still produce successes, and then--. The designs which have been lurking under this pretext could not mean anything else than this. Who knows but that we may still talk to America at last. The only test of clear intentions would have been this, to have cut up the American war, and all possible return to it for any cause, or under any pretext. I am confident that the sentiment of the people of England is, and always has been, to procure peace and reconciliation with America, and to vindicate the national honor in the contest with the House of Bourbon.

If this intention had been pursued in a simple and direct manner, I am confident that the honor and safety of the British nation would long ago have been established in a general peace with all the belligerent powers. These are the sentiments upon which I have always acted in those negotiations, which I have had upon the subject of peace with the late Ministry; reconciliation with America, and peace with all the world, upon terms consistent with the honor and safety of my own country.

Peace must be sought in such ways, as promise the greatest degree of practicability. The sentiments of individuals as philanthropists may be overborne by the power of ancient prejudices, which too frequently prevail in the aggregates of nations. In such case, the philanthropist, who wishes the good of his own country and of mankind, must be the bulrush bending to the storm, and not the st.u.r.dy oak, unavailingly resisting. National prejudices are, I hope, generally upon the decline. Reason and humanity gain ground every day against their _natural_ enemies, folly and injustice. The ideas of nations being _natural_ enemies to each other are generally reprobated. But still _jealousies_ and ancient rivals.h.i.+ps remain, which obstruct the road to peace among men. If one belligerent nation will entertain a standing force of three or four hundred thousand fighting men, other nations must have defended frontiers and barrier towns, and the barrier of a neighboring island, whose const.i.tution does not allow a standing military force, must consist in a superiority at sea. It is necessary for her own defence. If all nations by mutual consent will reduce their _offensive_ powers, which they only claim under the pretext of necessary _defence_, and bring forward the reign of the millennium; then away with your frontiers and barriers, and your Gibraltars, and the key of the Baltic, and all the hostile array of nations,

Aspera compositis nitescant saecula bellis.

These must be the sentiments of every philanthropist in his interior thoughts. But if we are not to seek peace by some practicable method, accommodated to the remaining prejudices of the mult.i.tude, we shall not in our own time, I fear, see that happy day. If Great Britain and France are ancient rivals, then, until the reign of the millennium shall approach, arrange that rivals.h.i.+p upon equitable terms, as the two leading nations of Europe, set them in balance to each other; the one by land, the other by sea. Give to France her elevated rank among the nations of Europe. Give to Great Britain the honor of her flag, and the security of her island by her wooden walls, and there would be no obstruction to general and perpetual peace. The prejudices of disrespect between nations prevail only among the inferior ranks.

Believe me, for one at least, I have the highest sentiments of respect for the nation of France. I have no other sentiments of hostility but what are honorable towards them, and which, as a member of a rival State at war with them, consists in the duty of vigilance which I owe towards the honor and interests of my own country. I am not conscious of a word or a thought, which on _the point of honor_ I would wish to have concealed from a French Minister.