nisance: whereas France belonged to the "Southern department," and here Mr Fox was the presiding genius. Consequently, the envoy who should treat with Franklin was appointed by Shelburne, and was answerable to him alone; while he who should treat with de Vergennes was one who came and went at the bidding of Mr Fox. The envoy of Shelburne was Mr Richard Oswald, a retired merchant, whose talent as a negotiator consisted in an absolute honesty and guilelessness which is only to be found in his (and my) dear country. In their earlier, tentative conferences, Franklin managed to negotiate in such a way as to make the question at issue concern, not the independence of America, which he took for granted, but how much England was prepared to surrender along with the Colonies. He was playing for Canada, Nova Scotia, and, in fine, for the residue of this poor country's possessions in North America : though he was willing that she should keep the Islands. And, by all appearance, he was playing a winning game, when the introcession of his partner spoilt his hand. The Peace Commission consisted of four members, of whom he alone was virtually "in office" at this time. John Jay was in Madrid, John Adams in Holland, and Henry Laurens a prisoner (or very lately a prisoner) in England. Sudden ill-health caused Franklin to summon Jay to his assistance, who arrived at the end of June. Now Jay was the most estimable American of his generation and almost the most likeable, but he was not a cosmopolite. He was apt to feel that foreigners

1 Though a London merchant, Oswald was a pure Scot. He was quite a stranger to Franklin, pace an important History of the United States, which apparently confuses him with David Hartley.

2 Meaning, of course, not Great Britain and Ireland, but the West India Islands. They were commonly referred to in the Colonies, and even in England, as the Islands in those days. The bad habit of ignoring their geographical relation to America is a product of later ignorance.

were strange folk, anyhow; and now, with or without good reason, he became possessed by a spirit of suspicion so sincere that it would be easy to make fun of it. With or without information on the point, he was convinced that when the diplomatists of Europe met round a table, no Americans being present, they would certainly arrange matters, on terms of mutual accommodation, to the disadvantage of America. Seeing ulterior motives and sinister designs where Franklin saw nothing but an ordinary effect of official conservatism, he took alarm at the term "Plantations or Colonies" in the formal commission to treat which was given to Oswald early in July. Until these fears were removed by the substitution of "The United States," business had to stand still. Then, at the

end of September, the time was gone by for asking Canada, Nova Scotia, etc. And now enters John Adams, full of satisfaction with himself on the score of some successes among the Dutch moneylenders, but still fuller of a certain secret resentment, the origin of which has been referred to on the margin of a former page. Therefore he now expressed his approval of Mr Jay's noble conduct with aggressive emphasis: an emphasis in which there. speaks the humourless patriot, but still more the provincial; and, more than either patriot or provincial, the bitter, wounded, vain man with a rankling grudge, happy to take or support any course which he knew to be contrary to the feeling and sense of his illustrious colleague. John Jay next renewed his proposal that they should not communicate with the French ministry regarding the progress of their negotiations with England: and John Adams impressively approved. The commission was instructed by Congress to do nothing without the knowledge and concurrence of their generous ally; but these two now said they would break that

instruction without a scruple. This placed Franklin in a difficult position, and whatever course he took he could hardly be in the right. But he saw that the greater evil would be to place himself in conflict with his colleagues just then. The juncture was critical. Ministerial changes in England were anticipated which might quash the peace negotiations even yet and reopen the war. In the interests of all it

was desirable that not an hour should be wasted in conflict or friction of any sort. He therefore gave in, without further protest, to the will of the majority.

This was in October, and matters now went on apace. Waiving details, there were three questions of outstanding difficulty; questions upon which each party was either very sure of its right, or greatly interested in asserting one. The first, second, and third of these were disputed on behalf of the States with good effect by Jay, Adams, and Franklin respectively. Jay upheld manfully the right of the States to expand westward, in defiance of some restrictive Spanish claims which England was inclined to favour. Adams vindicated the claim of the States to share in the Newfoundland fisheries -not as a liberty granted by men or treaties, but as a right belonging to them from the creation of things in a fine burst of angry eloquence in which we have, for the only time in Europe, I think, a glimpse of the better John Adams. But the third question was the one that, from the very beginning of the negotiations, had been found most intractable. It had often been taken up, and been often put aside again. Up to the last moment it appeared that upon this question the treaty would be wrecked, even within sight of signature. It was the question of compensation to the Loyalists, or those Americans who had decided to stand by their king rather than their country when the sundering hour had come in

'76. If anything could exceed the opposition to such a claim by American feeling and American opinion, it was the stress laid upon maintaining it by the English government and people. When

they had lost so much, and saved so little honour, they were not going to forsake their friends in the act of settlement. It was an honest feeling, though the thought involved in it had certainly been submitted to insufficient analysis. The reasons for a very different feeling towards those unfortunates on the part of their countrymen will readily occur to the reader. No man in America was more convinced than Franklin that the Loyalists (or Royalists, as he called them) ought to accept the consequences of having warred unprosperously against their own land and its liberties. He was none the less inflexible in that opinion because his own son, William Franklin, the late governor of New Jersey, was among those Royalists and now living as a refugee in England. When the question was brought up again at the end of November, the English commissioners (there were now three) made a heroic attempt to carry their point and it appeared that if they should not succeed, there must be a deadlock to the whole process of peace-making. It was then that Franklin quietly drew from his pocket a piece of paper stating an unexpected counter-claim, so cogent, and of such a kind, that, rather than face it or dispute it, the English commissioners gave up their point at once, and also conceded, without further debate, the other American claims that were still under consideration. All the many difficulties were gone like a dream. On the day (November 30, 1782) following this "masterly stroke," the preliminary treaty was sealed, signed, and delivered.

So far good. But to Franklin now fell the not very agreeable duty of announcing this happy consumma

tion to de Vergennes: of telling him, namely, that his American allies had carried their negotiations to a conclusion without once communicating with him, and had settled all questions between themselves and England without even the semblance of a respect for the interests of France. The fact that this was but a preliminary treaty, and that it definitely concluded nothing, did not lessen the extreme peculiarity, to employ a mild phrase, of the course taken by the American commissioners. But it enabled Franklin to offer, for what he acknowledged to have been "a lack of bienséance," an ostensible excuse or extenuation, which de Vergennes made a virtue of accepting. He divined, however, that his old friend had a better excuse which he was bound in honour not to plead, and that his own disposition had been overborne by his colleagues. Regarding them, he said a little later, "They do not pretend to recognise the rules of courtesy towards us: which was a little hard on Jay, though no injustice to Adams. At any rate peace was secured, and by this secrecy and celerity was snatched, apparently, from complications and perils that would soon have subverted the labours of all the peacemakers.1 The definitive

1 For it must be added that in so profoundly distrusting the intentions of the other Allies towards America at the last stage of their adventure in common, Jay was either acting more wisely than he knew, or else was possessed of definite knowledge which he did not impart to either of his colleagues, certainly not to both of them. I am not aware that the latter supposition has ever been proved, and I think it is unlikely. He seems to have been influenced by a certain intercepted document, which was also known to Franklin, but which was not sufficient to shake Franklin's confidence in the good faith of his friends. Nevertheless, the more recent opening of the archives has shown that when Spain became a party to the Alliance in 1779, the price of that accession of strength was a Secret Treaty between France and Spain, containing articles which were likely to have greatly prejudiced the interests of America when it came to settling the terms of peace.

It ought also to be added, to avert misconception on the part of English readers who do not know their men, that though