Part 1058

"Benjamin Franklin, now venerable with years, had been doing at the court of Versailles a work hardly less important than that of Washington on the battle-fields of America. By the simple grace and dignity of his manners, by his large good sense and freedom of thought, by his fame as a scientific discoverer, above all by his consummate tact in the management of men, the whilom printer, king's postmaster-general for America, discoverer, London colonial agent, delegate in the Continental Congress, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, had completely captivated elegant, free-thinking France. Learned and common folk, the sober and the frivolous alike swore by Franklin. Snuff-boxes, furniture, dishes, even stoves were gotten up 'à la Franklin.' The old man's portrait was in every house. That the French Government, in spite of a monarch who was half afraid of the rising nation beyond sea, had given America her hearty support, was in no small measure due to the influence of Franklin. And his skill in diplomacy was of the greatest value in the negotiations now pending."

_E. B. Andrews, History of the United States, volume 1, pages 208-209._

ALSO IN: _E. E. Hale, Franklin in France, volume 2, chapters 3-4._

_Lord J. Russell, Life of Fox, chapters 16-17 (volume 1)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (September-November). The Peace parleyings at Paris. Distrust of French aims by Jay and Adams. A secret and separate negotiation with England.

"The task of making a treaty of peace was simplified both by [the change of ministry which placed Lord Shelburne at the head of affairs in England] … and by the total defeat of the Spaniards and French at Gibraltar in September [see ENGLAND; A. D. 1780-1782]. Six months before, England had seemed worsted in every quarter. Now England, though defeated in America was victorious as regarded France and Spain. The avowed object for which France had entered into alliance with the Americans, was to secure the independence of the United States, and this point was now substantially gained. The chief object for which Spain had entered into alliance with France was to drive the English from Gibraltar, and this point was now decidedly lost. France had bound herself not to desist from the war until Spain should recover Gibraltar; but now there was little hope of accomplishing this, except by some fortunate bargain in the treaty, and Vergennes tried to persuade England to cede the great stronghold, in exchange for West Florida, which Spain had lately conquered, or for Oran or Guadaloupe. Failing in this, he adopted a plan for satisfying Spain at the expense of the United States; and he did this the more willingly as he had no love for the Americans, and did not wish to see them become too powerful. France had strictly kept her pledges; she had given us valuable and timely aid in gaining our independence; and the sympathies of the French people were entirely with the American cause. But the object of the French government had been simply to humiliate England, and this end was sufficiently accomplished by depriving her of her thirteen colonies. The immense territory extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River, and from the border of West Florida to the Great Lakes, had passed from the hands of France into those of England at the peace of 1763; and by the Quebec Act of 1774 England had declared the southern boundary of Canada to be the Ohio River. … Vergennes maintained that the Americans ought to recognize the Quebec Act, and give up to England all the territory north of the Ohio River. The region south of this limit should, he thought, be made an Indian territory, and placed under the protection of Spain and the United States. … Upon another important point the views of the French government were directly opposed to American interests. The right to catch fish on the banks of Newfoundland had been shared by treaty between France and England; and the New England fishermen, as subjects of the king of Great Britain, had participated in this privilege. The matter was of very great importance, not only to New England, but to the United States in general. … The British government was not inclined to grant the privilege, and on this point Vergennes took sides with England, in order to establish a claim upon her for concessions advantageous to France in some other quarter. … Jay [who had lately arrived in Paris to take part in the negotiations] soon began to suspect the designs of the French minister. He found that he was sending M. de Rayneval as a secret emissary to Lord Shelburne under an assumed name; he ascertained that the right of the United States to the Mississippi valley was to be denied; and he got hold of a dispatch from Marbois, the French secretary of legation at Philadelphia, to Vergennes, opposing the American claim to the Newfoundland fisheries. As soon as Jay learned these facts, he sent his friend Dr. Benjamin Vaughan to Lord Shelburne to put him on his guard, and while reminding him that it was greatly for the interest of England to dissolve the alliance between America and France, he declared himself ready to begin the negotiations without waiting for the recognition of independence, provided that Oswald's commission should speak of the thirteen United States of America, instead of calling them colonies and naming them separately. {3285} This decisive step was taken by Jay on his own responsibility, and without the knowledge of Franklin, who had been averse to anything like a separate negotiation with England. It served to set the ball rolling at once. … Lord Shelburne at once perceived the antagonism that had arisen between the allies, and promptly took advantage of it. A new commission was made out for Oswald, in which the British government first described our country as the United States; and early in October negotiations were begun and proceeded rapidly. On the part of England the affair was conducted by Oswald, assisted by Strachey and Fitzherbert, who had succeeded Grenville. In the course of the month John Adams arrived in Paris, and a few weeks later Henry Laurens. … The arrival of Adams fully decided the matter as to a separate negotiation with England. He agreed with Jay that Vergennes should be kept as far as possible in the dark until everything was cut and dried, and Franklin was reluctantly obliged to yield. The treaty of alliance between France and the United States had expressly stipulated that neither power should ever make peace without the consent of the other. … In justice to Vergennes, it should be borne in mind that he had kept strict faith with us in regard to every point that had been expressly stipulated. … At the same time, in regard to matters not expressly stipulated, Vergennes was clearly playing a sharp game against us; and it is undeniable that, without departing technically from the obligations of the alliance, Jay and Adams—two men as honourable as ever lived—played a very sharp defensive game against him. … The treaty with England was not concluded until the consent of France had been obtained, and thus the express stipulation was respected; but a thorough and detailed agreement was reached as to what the purport of the treaty should be, while our not too friendly ally was kept in the dark."

_J. Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, chapter 1._

"If his [Vergennes'] policy had been carried out, it seems clear that he would have established a claim for concessions from England by supporting her against America on the questions of Canada and the Canadian border and the Newfoundland fishery. … The success of such a policy would have been extremely displeasing to the Congress, and Jay and Adams defeated it. … The act was done, and if it can be justified by success, that justification, at least, is not wanting."

_W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 15 (volume 4)._

"The instructions of congress, given to the American commissioners under the instigation of the French court, were absolute and imperative, 'to undertake nothing without the knowledge and concurrence of that court, and ultimately to govern themselves by their advice and opinion.' These orders, transmitted at the time of the enlargement of the commission, had just been reinforced by assurances given to quiet the uneasiness created in France by the British overtures through Governor Carleton. Thus far, although the commissioners had felt them to be derogatory to the honor of their country, as well as to their own character as its representatives, there had been no necessity for action either under or against them. But now that matters were coming to the point of a serious negotiation, and the secondary questions of interest to America were to be determined, especially those to which France had shown herself indifferent, not to say adverse, it seemed as if no chance remained of escaping a decision. Mr. Jay, jealous of the mission of De Rayneval, of which not a hint had been dropped by the French court, suspicious of its good faith from the disclosures of the remarkable dispatch of Marbois, and fearful of any advice like that of which he had received a foretaste through M. de Rayneval, at the same time provoked that the confidence expected should be all on one side, the Count communicating nothing of the separate French negotiation, came to the conclusion that the interests of America were safest when retained in American hands. He therefore declared himself in favor of going on to treat with Great Britain, without consulting the French court. Dr. Franklin, on the other hand, expressing his confidence in that court, secured by his sense of the steady reception of benefits by his country, signified his willingness to abide by the instructions he had received. Yet it is a singular fact, but lately disclosed, that, notwithstanding this general feeling, which was doubtless sincerely entertained, Dr. Franklin had been the first person to violate those instructions, at the very inception of the negotiations, by proposing to Lord Shelburne the cession of Canada, and covering his proposal with an earnest injunction to keep it secret from France, because of his belief that she was adverse to the measure. … It may fairly be inferred that, whatever Franklin might have been disposed to believe of the French court, his instincts were too strong to enable him to trust them implicitly with the care of interests purely American. And, in this, there can be no reasonable cause for doubt that he was right. The more full the disclosures have been of the French policy from their confidential papers, the more do they show Count de Vergennes assailing England in America, with quite as fixed a purpose as ever Chatham had to conquer America in Germany. Mr. Adams had no doubt of it. He had never seen any signs of a disposition to aid the United States from affection or sympathy. On the contrary, he had perceived their cause everywhere made subordinate to the general considerations of continental politics. Perhaps his impressions at some moments carried him even further, and led him to suspect in the Count a positive desire to check and depress America. In this he fell into the natural mistake of exaggerating the importance of his own country. In the great game of nations which was now playing at Paris under the practised eye of France's chief (for Count de Maurepas was no longer living), the United States probably held a relative position, in his mind, not higher than that of a pawn, or possibly a knight, on a chess-table. Whilst his attention was absorbed in arranging the combinations of several powers, it necessarily followed that he had not the time to devote that attention to any one, which its special representative might imagine to be its due. But even this hypothesis was to Mr. Adams justification quite sufficient for declining to submit the interests of his country implicitly to the Count's control. If not so material in the Count's eyes, the greater the necessity of keeping them in his own care. He therefore seized the first opportunity to announce to his colleagues his preference for the views of Mr. Jay. {3286} After some little reflection, Dr. Franklin signified his acquiescence in this decision. His objections to it had doubtless been increased by the peculiar relations he had previously sustained to the French court, and by a very proper desire to be released from the responsibility of what might from him be regarded as a discourteous act. No such delicacy was called for on the part of the other commissioners. Neither does it appear that Count de Vergennes manifested a sign of discontent with them at the time. He saw that little confidence was placed in him, but he does not seem to have made the slightest effort to change the decision or even to get an explanation of it. The truth is, that the course thus taken had its conveniences for him, provided only that the good faith of the American negotiators, not to make a separate peace, could be depended upon. Neither did he ever affect to complain of it, excepting at one particular moment when he thought he had cause to fear that the support he relied on might fail."

_J. Q. and C. F. Adams, The Life of John Adams, volume 2, chapter 7._

"The radical difference between Franklin and his colleagues was in the question of trust. Franklin saw no reason to distrust the fidelity of France at any time to her engagements to the United States during the revolutionary war. His colleagues did not share this confidence, and yet, while impressed by this distrust of their ally, they made no appeal for explanation. The weight of opinion, as will hereafter be more fully seen, is now that Franklin was right, and they in this respect wrong. But whatever may have been the correctness of their view, it was proper that, before making it the basis of their throwing off the burden of treaty obligation and their own instructions, they should have first notified France of their complaint. Obligations cannot be repudiated by one party on the ground of the failure of the other party to perform some condition imposed on him, without giving him notice of the charge against him, so that he could have the opportunity of explanation. It may be added, on the merits, that the extenuation set up by Jay and Adams, that France was herself untrue to her obligations, however honestly they believed it, can not now be sustained. Livingston, who knew more of the attitude of France than any public man on the American side except Franklin, swept it aside as groundless. Edward Everett, one of the most accomplished historical writers and diplomatists the country has ever produced, speaks, as we shall see, to the same effect, and other historical critics of authority, to be also hereafter cited, give us the same conclusion. Yet there are other reasons which may excuse their course, and that of Franklin, who concurred with them rather than defeat a peace. In the first place, such was their isolation, that their means of communication with Congress was stopped; and they might well have argued that if Congress knew that the English envoys refused to treat with them except in secret conference their instructions would have been modified. In the second place we may accept Adams' statement that Vergennes was from time to time informally advised of the nature of the pending propositions. In the third place, the articles agreed on in 1782 were not to be a definite treaty except with the assent of France. … It now appears that the famous Marbois letter, handed to Jay by one of the British loyalists, and relied on by him as showing France's duplicity, was disavowed by Marbois; and there are, aside from this, very strong reasons to distrust its genuineness. In the second place, we have in the correspondence of George III a new light thrown, on the action taken by Jay in consequence of this letter. … Benjamin Vaughan, while a gentleman of great amiability and personal worth, was, when Jay sent him without Franklin's knowledge on a confidential mission to the British ministry, in the employ of that ministry as secret agent at Paris. It is due to Jay to say that he was ignorant of this fact, though he would have been notified of it had he consulted Franklin. One of the most singular incidents of this transaction is that George III, seeking double treachery in thus sending back to him his own agent in the guise of an agent from the American legation, regarded it as a peculiarly subtle machination of Franklin, which it was his duty to baffle by utterly discrediting Benjamin Vaughan. It should be added that Franklin's affection for Benjamin Vaughan was in no wise diminished by Vaughan's assumption, with an honesty which no one who knew him would question, of this peculiar kind of mediatorship. And in Jay Franklin's confidence was unabated. He more than once said that no one could be found more suited than Jay to represent the United States abroad. And when, in view of death, he prepared to settle his estate, he selected; Jay as his executor."

_F. Wharton, The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, chapter 9, section 111, and chapter 13, section 158 (volume 1)._

Writing to M. de la Luzerne, the French Minister in the United States, under date of December 19, 1782, Count de Vergennes expressed himself on the conduct of the American Commissioners as follows: "You will surely be gratified, as well as myself, with the very extensive advantages, which our allies, the Americans, are to receive from the peace; but you certainly will, not be less surprised than I have been, at the conduct of the Commissioners. According to the instructions of Congress, they ought to have done nothing without our participation. I have informed you, that the King did not seek to influence the negotiation any further than his offices might be necessary to his friends. The American Commissioners will not say that I have interfered, and much less that I have wearied them with my curiosity. They have cautiously kept themselves at a distance from me. Mr. Adams, one of them, coming from Holland, where he had been received and served by our ambassador, had been in Paris nearly three weeks, without imagining that he owed me any mark of attention, and probably I should not have seen him till this time, if I had not caused him to be reminded of it. Whenever I have had occasion to see anyone of them, and inquire of them briefly respecting the progress of the negotiation, they have constantly clothed their speech in generalities, giving me to understand that it did not go forward, and that they had no confidence in the sincerity of the British ministry. Judge of my surprise, when, on the 30th of November, Dr. Franklin informed me that the articles were signed. The reservation retained on our account does not save the infraction of the promise, which we have mutually made, not to sign except conjointly. {3287} I owe Dr. Franklin the justice to state, however, that on the next day he sent me a copy of the articles. He will hardly complain that I received them without demonstrations of sensibility. It was not till some days after, that, when this minister had come to see me, I allowed myself to make him perceive that his proceeding in this abrupt signature of the articles had little in it, which could be agreeable to the King. He appeared sensible of it, and excused, in the best manner he could, himself and his colleagues. Our conversation was amicable."

_J. Bigelow, Life of Benjamin Franklin, volume 3, page 207, note._

ALSO IN: _J. Jay, The Peace Negotiations of 1782-3 (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 7, chapter 2)._

_E. Fitzmaurice, Life of the Earl of Shelburne, volume 3, chapter 6._

_E. E. Hale, Franklin in France, volume 2, chapters 5-8._

_H. Doniol, Histoire de la Participation de la France à l'établissement des États-Unis d'Amérique, tome 5._

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1782-1783.

[Image: Map of the United States.]

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782-1783. Grievances of the Army. The Newburgh Addresses.