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 copanions 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 imposing 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 Inight become far more serviceable to the United States by being engaged to write in the public newspapers in support of the measures of Congress and their ministers. My assistant, Mr. Gonverneur 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, selfish 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 purposes 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 allowance 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.”—Diplomatic 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 persuasion 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

treat but in concert with France, and that as he could do nothing of importance in the absence of all his colleagues, he would, if Mr Oswald wished it, present him to the Count de Vergennes. Oswald consenting, Dr. Franklin wrote to the minister a narrative of what had occurred, inclosing copies of all the letters that had passed, and proposing to bring Mr. Oswald to Versailles.

Two days after (April 18th), Dr. Franklin, Mr. Oswald, and M. de Vergennes, were closeted in the minister's cabinet, and conversed nearly an hour. The minister, who received Mr. Oswald with particular cordiality, assured him that the French court reciprocated, to the full, the good dispositions towards peace which were entertained by the government of England; but that France, positively, could not treat without the concurrence of her allies. They must, therefore, treat for a general peace, or not treat at all. He advised the selection of Paris as the place of negotiation, but would not object to Vienna; and, indeed, the king was so desirous of ending the war, that he would consent to any place the King of England might prefer. He told Mr. Oswald, frankly, that in case the treaty was entered upon, France had certain demands for reparation to make of England; meaning, probably, compensation for the French ships taken by surprise at sea before war had been declared. Mr. Oswald wished to obtain some propositions to convey to London. "No," said the minister; "there are four nations engaged in the war against you, who cannot, till they have consulted and know each other's minds, be ready to make propositions. Your court being without allies and alone, knowing its own mind, can express it immediately. It is therefore more natural to expect the first proposition from you."

In the carriage, on their return from Versailles to Passy, Mr. Oswald again warned Dr. Franklin of the consequences which would certainly follow if France should attempt to impose on England conditions too humiliating. There is no lack of money in England, said he; the only difficulty is to invent new modes of taxation and even if taxation should fail, there is always the resource of stopping the payment of the interest upon the public debt, which alone would afford five millions sterling a year! "I made no reply to this," records Franklin in his diary of the negotiation: "for I did not desire to discourage their stopping payment, which I considered as cutting the throat of the public credit, and a mean

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