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acquire that hated nest of contraband trade.
When
Chap. XXVII.} 1782.
April. |
the
French ambassador reported to him the proposal of
Vergennes to constitute its inhabitants an independent republic, he seemed to hear the tocsin of insurrection sounding from the
La Plata to
San Francisco, and from that time had nothing to propose for the employment of the allied fleets in the
West Indies.
He was perplexed beyond the power of extrication.
One hope only remained.
Minorca having been wrested from the
English, he concentrated all the force of
Spain in
Europe on the one great object of recovering
Gibraltar, and held
France to her promise not to make peace until that fortress should be given up.
With
America, therefore, measures for a
general peace must begin.
As the pacification of the late British dependencies belonged exclusively to the department of Lord Shelburne, the other members of the cabinet should have respected his right.
As a body, they did so; but
Fox, leagued with young men as uncontrollable as himself, resolved to fasten a quarrel upon him, and to get into his own hands every part of the negotiations for peace.
At a cabinet meeting on the twelfth of April, he told
Shel-
burne and those who sided with him, that he was determined to bring the matter to a crisis; and on the same day he wrote to one of his young friends: ‘They must yield entirely.
If they do not, we must go to war again; that is all: I am sure I am ready.’
Oswald at the time was on his way to
Paris, where on the sixteenth he went straightway to
Franklin.
The latter, speaking not his own opinion only, but that of congress and of every one of his associate
