(Private.)
Paris, June 16th, 1782.
Dear Charles,
I received your letter of the 10th by Ogg on the night of the
14th, and would have sent him back as immediately as you seemed
to wish; but having no other messenger to carry M. de
Vergennes's answer, I was obliged to keep him till he could be
the bearer of that likewise.
I can easily conceive the embarrassment occasioned to you by my
letter, and have so much confidence in the honour of the persons
to whom you communicated it, that I am not under the smallest
uneasiness on that account; the explanation, however, that you
wish to come to, certainly has its difficulties; and amongst
them some so sacred, that unless they can be kept altogether
clear, you cannot but agree with me in thinking that they must
be buried at least in silence, though not in oblivion. In order
therefore that you may see into every part of this business, I
will, as you desire, state in the most explicit manner the
circumstances of it, as far as I think they affect any
confidence reposed in me.
In the first place, then, you will have observed, that although
Franklin has actually made me no confidence, owing, as I
believe, without doubt, to the reasons I stated, yet as the
communication he had said he would make to me was of the most
confidential nature, and in full trust that the subjects which
he should mention should not be given as propositions coming
from him, I think it would be a breach of that confidence to
make it known even that he had promised to hold such a
conversation with me; and therefore to charge Lord Shelburne
with having diverted from me that expected communication, would
be to proclaim Franklin's promise to me; which promise, though
it has not been followed up, I cannot think myself at liberty to
quote. The delicacy of Franklin's situation with respect to the
French Court was, as he said, the ground of the caution which he
observed, and which, nevertheless, he was once inclined to risk
in my trust. He would certainly have both to repent and to
complain if anything on my part should lead to betray even the
confidential disposition he had entertained. These reasons you
will, I am sure, agree with me in considering as decisive
against any mention being to be made of the expectations I had
formed from the conversation I was to have had with Franklin.
The Canada paper is not perhaps quite under the same
circumstances. The only knowledge I have of that is from Oswald;
and as I before told you, I had it from him at a moment when I
fancy he apprehended I had heard or should hear of it from
Franklin. No other reason, indeed, can account for his not
mentioning it from the end of April till the 31st of May. He
told it me under no express limitation of confidence: the words
in which he introduced it were, "I think it right you should
know;" and I am perfectly sure that he asked from me no
engagement of secrecy, nor do I conceive myself under any with
regard to him, except that general secrecy which is always
attached to business of a confidential nature, such as was the
business I related to you. I recollect asking whether he had
showed the paper to you: he said No; but did not add any
injunction to me not to do so; indeed, if he had, I should have
stated to him the impossibility of my keeping from you a
circumstance of that importance, or of my becoming, by my
silence in it, a separate party to a business which it was my
duty fully and entirely to lay before you and to receive from
you; nor indeed at this moment is the knowledge of it confined
to Lord Shelburne; as I am pretty sure Oswald told me that Lord
Ashburton was with Lord Shelburne when he, Oswald, asked if he
might give any answer to Franklin about the paper, or rather
observed that he supposed he could not then have any answer to
it. Under these circumstances, the difficulty with regard to the
Canada paper, of which I have no copy, lies more possibly in the
indelicacy and perhaps bad policy of bringing forward Franklin
where he wished so much not to appear, than in the quoting it
from me. I do not wish to be quoted, if there exists the least
doubt whether I should. But I cannot more exactly explain to you
the whole extent of that doubt, than by showing you that it does
not exist in any specific obligation on my part, but only in the
nature of what was told to me; the subject itself carrying with
it, as you will see, many reasons for secrecy, and every mark of
it in the manner of conducting it; but as to positive engagement
or obligation upon this subject, I have none.
The remaining circumstance--of the intention mentioned to Mr.
Oswald by Lord Shelburne, of giving him a commission if it
should be necessary--stands altogether clear of the slightest
shade of difficulty upon the point of confidence; indeed, at the
time I wrote you word of it, I did not imagine I was informing
you of anything new or unknown to you; and only so far meant to
dwell upon it, as to regret its happening precisely at the
instant when it was most important it should not. I apprehended
that Lord Shelburne might have already expressed such an
intention to the rest of the King's Ministers, upon the ground
of the American share of this business, which ground, in the
present stage of it, I thought possibly you had not found it
easy to object to. In this idea it was that Lord Fitzwilliam's
appointment occurred to me, not to prevent a clandestine
negotiation, but to unite a separated one; always imagining that
you knew of, but did not resist, the intended commission to Mr.
Oswald, and therefore hinting the expediency of superseding it,
by giving to another person an appointment of such rank and
magnitude as should include a power which it seems neither for
the public interest, nor for yours and your friends' interests,
to leave separate and distinct.
To return, however, to the point of confidence: upon this last
subject there is none; and you are certainly at full liberty to
proclaim at Charing Cross that Lord Shelburne told Mr. Oswald he
supposed he would not object to a commission if it should be
necessary; and that since his last return to Paris, Mr. Oswald
has told me he found it very much Franklin's wish likewise. If I
may repeat, therefore, in a few words, what I have tried to
express to you in a good many, it is that, as to Franklin's
first intention of a private and confidential communication with
me, I hold myself so engaged in secrecy to him, that I think it
would be a breach of confidence in me to have that intention at
all spoken of. As to the Canada paper, I leave it, with the
comment I have made upon it, altogether to your discretion; and
as to the proposed commission, you are certainly at full liberty
to say of it what you please. I have it not in my power to give
you any additional proofs of sinister management in this
business. I seldom see Oswald, though upon good terms with him;
and have seen Franklin, since Oswald's coming, but once, when he
was as silent as ever, notwithstanding my reminding him of his
promise; so that I cannot help thinking that business altogether
irretrievable. But neither do I know what you will gain by
forcing Oswald's return; indeed I am inclined to think it might
be much more prudent to save appearances by leaving him here,
till you shall have completed your purpose of receiving the
propositions you wish or the refusal you wish from Versailles.
Perhaps, politically speaking, you may not think it wise to make
the conduct, or rather misconduct, of a foreign negotiation the
ground of a domestic rupture, which may betray too much weakness
and disunion; but this is too delicate a subject for me to say
anything upon, more than to assure you that, whatever is your
determination about it, you will not find me shrink from the
part I have or may have to take in it.
And one word here about the desire I have expressed to return to
England: it is impossible not to say that I feel that desire in
the strongest degree. I would not speak peevishly about my
disappointment in the unlucky check that I have met with; but I
think you will agree that the real service it might have been my
good fortune perhaps to have been assisting in, is by that check
completely annihilated, nor can any step now taken recover or
retrieve it; and that consideration weighs pretty heavily in a
situation in itself not agreeable to me. But if I repeat this
now, it is to keep you awake to the earnest solicitations I make
of returning in the first moment you may think it practicable;
till then you need have no apprehension of seeing me, but may
trust that no personal motives, however strong, can weigh
against the important reasons you state, as well as the desire
you express, for my continuing something longer at Paris.
I am writing to you on the 16th, waiting impatiently for M. de
Vergennes's answer, which he gave me reason to hope I shall have
to-morrow.