The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume IV Part 9

TO RICHARD OSWALD.

Pa.s.sy, January 14th, 1783.

Sir,

I am much obliged by your information of your intended trip to England; I heartily wish you a good journey, and a speedy return, and request your kind care of a packet for Mr Hodgson.

I enclose two papers, that were read at different times by me to the Commissioners; they may serve to show, if you should have occasion, what was urged on the part of America on certain points; or may help to refresh your memory. I send you also another paper, which I once read to you separately. It contains a proposition for improving the law of nations, by prohibiting the plundering of unarmed and usefully employed people. I rather wish than expect, that it will be adopted.

But I think it may be offered with a better grace by a country, that is likely to suffer least and gain most by continuing the ancient practice; which is our case, as the American ships, laden only with the gross productions of the earth, cannot be so valuable as yours, filled with sugars or with manufactures. It has not yet been considered by my colleagues, but if you should think or find that it might be acceptable on your side, I would try to get it inserted in the general treaty. I think it will do honor to the nations that establish it.

With great and sincere esteem, I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

B. FRANKLIN.

_Propositions relative to Privateering, communicated to Mr Oswald._

It is for the interest of humanity in general, that the occasions of war, and the inducements to it should be diminished.

If rapine is abolished, one of the encouragements to war is taken away, and peace therefore more likely to continue and be lasting.

The practice of robbing merchants on the high seas, a remnant of the ancient piracy, though it may be accidentally beneficial to particular persons, is far from being profitable to all engaged in it, or to the nation that authorises it. In the beginning of a war, some rich ships, not upon their guard, are surprised and taken. This encourages the first adventurers to fit out more armed vessels, and many others to do the same. But the enemy at the same time become more careful, arm their merchant ships better, and render them not so easy to be taken; they go also more under protection of convoys; thus while the privateers to take them are multiplied, the vessels subject to be taken, and the chances of profit, are diminished, so that many cruises are made, wherein the expenses overgo the gains; and as is the case in other lotteries, though particulars have got prizes, the ma.s.s of adventurers are losers, the whole expense of fitting out all the privateers, during a war, being much greater than the whole amount of goods taken. Then there is the national loss of all the labor of so many men during the time they have been employed in robbing; who besides spend what they get in riot, drunkenness, and debauchery, lose their habits of industry, are rarely fit for any sober business after a peace, and serve only to increase the number of highwaymen and housebreakers. Even the undertakers, who have been fortunate, are by sudden wealth led into expensive living, the habit of which continues when the means of supporting it ceases, and finally ruins them; a just punishment for their having wantonly and unfeelingly ruined many honest innocent traders and their families, whose subsistence was employed in serving the common interests of mankind.

Should it be agreed and become a part of the law of nations, that the cultivators of the earth are not to be molested or interrupted in their peaceable and useful employment, the inhabitants of the sugar islands would perhaps come under the protection of such a regulation, which would be a great advantage to the nations who at present hold those islands, since the cost of sugar to the consumer in those nations, consists not merely in the price he pays for it by the pound, but in the acc.u.mulated charge of all the taxes he pays in every war, to fit out fleets and maintain troops for the defence of the islands that raise the sugar, and the ships that bring it home. But the expense of treasure is not all. A celebrated philosophical writer remarks, that when he considered the wars made in Africa, for prisoners to raise sugars in America, the numbers slain in those wars, the numbers that, being crowded in ships, perish in the transportation, and the numbers that die under the severities of slavery, he could scarce look on a morsel of sugar without conceiving it spotted with human blood. If he had considered also the blood of one another, which the white nations shed in fighting for those islands, he would have imagined his sugar not as spotted only, but as thoroughly dyed red. On these accounts I am persuaded, that the subjects of the Emperor of Germany, and the Empress of Russia, who have no sugar islands, consume sugar cheaper at Vienna, and Moscow, with all the charge of transporting it after its arrival in Europe, than the citizens of London or of Paris. And I sincerely believe, that if France and England were to decide, by throwing dice, which should have the whole of their sugar islands, the loser in the throw would be the gainer. The future expense of defending them would be saved; the sugars would be bought cheaper by all Europe, if the inhabitants might make it without interruption, and whoever imported the sugar, the same revenue might be raised by duties at the custom houses of the nation that consumed it. And, on the whole, I conceive it would be better for the nations now possessing sugar colonies to give up their claim to them, let them govern themselves, and put them under the protection of all the powers of Europe as neutral countries, open to the commerce of all, the profits of the present monopolies being by no means equivalent to the expense of maintaining them.

COUNT DE VERGENNES TO B. FRANKLIN.

Translation.

Versailles, January 18th, 1783.

Sir,

It is essential that I should have the honor of conferring with you, Mr Adams, and your other colleagues, who are in Paris. I therefore pray you to invite these gentlemen to come out to Versailles with you on Monday, before ten o'clock in the morning. It will be well, also, if you will bring your grandson. It will be necessary for much writing and translating from English into French to be done. The object for which I ask this interview is very interesting to the United States.

I have the honor to be, Sir, DE VERGENNES.

TO COUNT DE VERGENNES.

Pa.s.sy, January 18th, 1783.

Sir,

Agreeably to the notice just received from your Excellency, I shall acquaint Mr Adams with your desire to see us on Monday before ten o'clock, at Versailles; and we shall endeavor to be punctual. My other colleagues are absent; Mr Laurens being gone to Bath, in England, to recover his health, and Mr Jay into Normandy. I shall bring my grandson, as you direct.

With great respect, I have the honor to be, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

BENJAMIN VAUGHAN TO B. FRANKLIN.

Paris, January 18th, 1783.

My Dearest Sir,

I cannot but in the most earnest manner, and from recent circ.u.mstances, press your going early to Versailles tomorrow; and I have considerable reason to think, that your appearance there will not displease the person whom you address. I am of opinion, that it is very likely that you will have the glory of having concluded the peace by this visit; at least I am sure, if the deliberations of tomorrow evening end unfavorably, that there is the strongest appearance of war; if they end favorably, perhaps little difficulty may attend the rest.

After all, the peace will have as much that is conceded in it, as England can in any shape be made just now to relish, owing to the stubborn demands, princ.i.p.ally of Spain, who would not, I believe, upon any motive recede from her conquests. What I wrote about Gibraltar arrived after the subject, as I understand, was canva.s.sed, and when it of course must have appeared impolitic eagerly and immediately to revive it.

You reproved me, or rather reproved a political scheme yesterday, of which I have heard more said favorably by your friends at Paris, than by any persons whatever in London. But do you, my dear Sir, make this peace, and trust our common sense respecting another war. England, said a man of sense to me the other day, will come out of the war like a convalescent out of disease, and must be re-established by some physic and much regimen. I cannot easily tell in what shape a bankruptcy would come upon England, and still less easily in what mode and degree it would affect us; but if your confederacy mean to bankrupt us now, I am sure we shall lose the great fear that would deter us from another war. Your allies, therefore, for policy and for humanity's sake, will, I hope, stop short of this extremity; especially as we should do some mischief to others, as well as to ourselves.

I am, my dearest Sir, your devoted, ever affectionate, and ever obliged,

B. VAUGHAN.

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Pa.s.sy, January 19th, 1783.

Sir,

Late last night I received a note from Count de Vergennes, acquainting me that it is very essential he should have a conference with us, and requesting that I would inform my colleagues. He desires that we may be with him before ten on Monday morning. If it will suit you to call here, we may go together in my carriage. We should be on the road by eight o'clock.

With great regard, I have the honor to be, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

Pa.s.sy, January 21st, 1783.

Sir,

I have just received your letters of November 9th and December 3d.

This is to inform you, and to request you to inform the Congress, that the preliminaries of peace between France, Spain, and England, were yesterday signed, and a cessation of arms agreed to by the Ministers of those powers, and by us in behalf of the United States, of which act, so far as relates to us, I enclose a copy. I have not yet obtained a copy of the preliminaries agreed to by the three Crowns, but hear, in general, that they are very advantageous to France and Spain. I shall be able, in a day or two, to write more fully and perfectly. Holland was not ready to sign preliminaries, but their princ.i.p.al points are settled. Mr Laurens is absent at Bath, and Mr Jay in Normandy, for their healths, but will both be here to a.s.sist in forming the Definitive Treaty. I congratulate you and our country on the happy prospects afforded us by the finishing so speedily this glorious Revolution, and am, with great esteem, Sir, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.