George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[541] ‘Spain has taken four years to consider whether she

Chap. XXVII.} 1782. April 23.

should treat with us or not. Give her forty, and let us in the mean time mind our own business.’

On the twenty-third, shortly after the return of Oswald to London, the cabinet on his report agreed to send him again to Franklin to acquaint him of their readiness to treat for a general peace, and at Paris, conceding American independence, but otherwise maintaining the treaties of 1763. On the twenty-eighth, Shelburne, who was in earnest, gave

28.

to his agent the verbal instruction: ‘If America is independent, she must be so of the whole world, with no ostensible, tacit, or secret connection with France.’ Canada could not be ceded. It was ‘reasonable to expect a free trade, unencumbered with duties, to every part of America.’ ‘All debts due to British subjects were to be secure, and the loyalists to be restored to a full enjoyment of their rights and privileges.’ As a compensation for the restoration of New York, Charleston, and Savannah, the river Penobscot might be proposed for the eastern boundary of New England. ‘Finally,’ he said, ‘tell Dr. Franklin candidly and confidentially Lord Shelburne's situation with the king; that his lordship will make no use of it but to keep his word with mankind.’ With these instructions, Oswald returned immediately to Paris, bearing from Shelburne to Franklin a most friendly letter, to which the king had given his thorough approval.

With the European belligerents the communication was necessarily to proceed from the department of which Fox was the chief. He entered upon the business in a spirit that foreboded no success, for, at