The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume IV Part 13

I have the honor to offer you every information respecting this port, and flatter myself that I shall succeed therein. I think to depart from this in May or June next for Ma.r.s.eilles, and to leave these barbarian pirates.

I have the honor to be, &c.

SALVA.

TO THE GRAND MASTER OF MALTA.

Pa.s.sy, April 6th, 1783.

My Lord,

I have the honor to address to your Eminent Highness the medal, which I have lately had struck. It is a homage of grat.i.tude, my Lord, which is due to the interest you have taken in our cause, and we no less owe it to your virtues, and to your Eminent Highness's wise administration of government.

Permit me, my Lord, to demand your protection for such of our citizens as circ.u.mstances may lead to your ports. I hope that your Eminent Highness will be pleased to grant it to them, and kindly receive the a.s.surances of the profound respect with which I am, my Lord, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

TO M. ROSENCRONE.

Pa.s.sy, April 13th, 1783.

Sir,

Monsieur de Walterstorff has communicated to me a letter from your Excellency, which affords me great pleasure, as it expresses in clear and strong terms the good disposition of your Court[16] to form connexions of friendship and commerce with the United States of America. I am confident that the same good disposition will be found in the Congress; and having acquainted that respectable body with the purport of your letter, I expect a commission will soon be sent, appointing some person in Europe to enter into a treaty with his Majesty the King of Denmark for the purpose desired.

In the meantime, to prepare and forward the business as much as may be, I send, for your Excellency's consideration, such a sketch as you mention, formed on the basis of our treaty with Holland, on which I shall be glad to receive your Excellency's sentiments. And I hope that this transaction when completed, may be the means of producing and securing a long and happy friendship between our two nations.

To smooth the way for obtaining this desirable end, as well as to comply with my duty, it becomes necessary for me on this occasion to mention to your Excellency the affair of our three prizes, which, having during the war entered Bergen as a neutral and friendly port, where they might repair the damages they had suffered, and procure provisions, were, by an order of your predecessor in the office you so honorably fill, violently seized and delivered to our enemies. I am inclined to think it was a hasty act, procured by the importunities and misrepresentations of the British Minister, and that your government could not, on reflection, approve of it. But the injury was done, and I flatter myself your Excellency will think with me, that it ought to be repaired. The means and manner I beg leave to recommend to your consideration, and am, with great respect, Sir, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] The Court of Denmark. See the letter referred to, p. 74 of this volume.

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

Pa.s.sy, April 16th, 1783.

Sir,

You complain sometimes of not hearing from us. It is now near three months since any of us have heard from America. I think our last letters came with General de Rochambeau. There is now a project under consideration for establishing monthly packet boats between France and New York, which I hope will be carried into execution; our correspondence then may be more regular and frequent.

I send herewith another copy of the treaty concluded with Sweden. I hope, however, that you will have received the former, and that the ratification is forwarded. The King, as the Amba.s.sador informs me, is now employed in examining the duties payable in his ports, with a view of lowering them in favor of America, and thereby encouraging and facilitating our mutual commerce.

M. de Walterstorff, Chamberlain of the King of Denmark, formerly Chief Justice of the Danish West India Islands, was last year at Paris, where I had some acquaintance with him, and he is now returned hither.

The newspapers have mentioned him as intended to be sent Minister from his Court to Congress, but he tells me no such appointment has yet been made. He a.s.sures me, however, that the King has a strong desire to have a treaty of friendship and commerce with the United States, and he has communicated to me a letter, which he received from M.

Rosencrone, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, expressing that disposition. I enclose a copy of the letter, and if Congress shall approve of entering into such a treaty with the King of Denmark, of which I told M. de Walterstorff I made no doubt, they will send to me, or whom else they shall think proper, the necessary instructions and powers for that purpose. In the meantime, to keep the business in train, I have sent to that Minister for his consideration, a translation of the plan, _mutatis mutandis_, which I received from Congress for a treaty with Sweden, accompanied by a letter, of which likewise I enclose a copy. I think it would be well to make it one of the instructions to whoever is commissioned for the treaty, that he previously procure satisfaction for the prizes mentioned in my letter.

The definitive treaties have met with great delays, partly by the tardiness of the Dutch, but princ.i.p.ally from the distractions in the Court of England, where for six or seven weeks there was properly no Ministry, nor any business effected. They have at last settled a Ministry, but of such a composition as does not promise to be lasting.

The papers will inform you who they are. It is now said, that Mr Oswald, who signed the preliminaries, is not to return here, but that Mr David Hartley comes in his stead to settle the definitive. A Congress is also talked of, and that some use is to be made therein of the mediation formerly proposed of the Imperial Courts. Mr Hartley is an old friend of mine, and a strong lover of peace, so that I hope we shall not have much difficult discussion with him; but I could have been content to have finished with Mr Oswald, whom we always found very reasonable.

Mr Laurens, having left Bath, mended in his health, is daily expected at Paris, where Messieurs Jay and Adams still continue. Mr Jefferson has not yet arrived, nor the Romulus, in which ship I am told he was to have taken his pa.s.sage. I have been the more impatient of this delay, from the expectation given me of full letters by him. It is extraordinary, that we should be so long without any arrivals from America in any part of Europe. We have as yet heard nothing of the reception of the preliminary articles in America, though it is now nearly five months since they were signed. Barney, indeed, did not get away from hence before the middle of January, but copies went by other ships long before him; he waited some time for the money he carried, and afterwards was detained by violent contrary winds. He had a pa.s.sport from England, and I hope arrived safe; though we have been in some pain for him, on account of a storm soon after he sailed.

The English merchants have shown great eagerness to rea.s.sume their commerce with America, but apprehending that our laws prohibiting that commerce, would not be repealed till England had set the example by repealing theirs, a number of vessels they had loaded with goods, have been detained in port, while the Parliament have been debating on the repealing bill, which has been altered two or three times, and is not agreed upon yet. It was at first proposed to give us equal privileges in trade with their own subjects, repealing thereby with respect to us, so much of their navigation act, as regards foreign nations. But that plan seems to be laid aside, and what will finally be done in the affair is uncertain. There is not a port in France, and few in Europe, from which I have not received several applications of persons desiring to be appointed consuls for America. They generally offer to execute the office for the honor of it, without salary. I suppose the Congress will wait to see what course commerce will take, and in what places it will fix itself, in order to find where consuls will be necessary, before any appointments are made, and perhaps it will then be thought best to send some of our own people. If they are not allowed to trade, there must be a great expense for salaries. If they may trade, and are Americans, the fortunes they make will mostly settle in our own country at last. The agreement I was to make here respecting consuls, has not yet been concluded. The article of trading is important. I think it would be well to reconsider it.

I have caused to be struck here the medal, which I formerly mentioned to you, the design of which you seemed to approve. I enclose one of them in silver, for the President of Congress, and one in copper for yourself; the impression on copper is thought to appear best, and you will soon receive a number for the members. I have presented one to the King, and another to the Queen, both in gold, and one in silver to each of the Ministers, as a monumental acknowledgment, which may go down to future ages, of the obligations we are under to this nation.

It is mighty well received, and gives general pleasure. If the Congress approve of it, as I hope they will, I may add something on the die (for those to be struck hereafter) to show that it was done by their order, which I could not venture to do till I had authority for it.

A mult.i.tude of people are continually applying to me personally, and by letters, for information respecting the means of transporting themselves, families, and fortunes to America. I give no encouragement to any of the King's subjects, as I think it would not be right in me to do it, without their sovereign's approbation; and, indeed, few offer from France but persons of irregular conduct and desperate circ.u.mstances, whom we had better be without; but I think there will be great emigrations from England, Ireland, and Germany. There is a great contest among the ports, which of them shall be of those to be declared _free_ for the _American trade_. Many applications are made to me to interest myself in the behalf of all of them, but having no instructions on that head, and thinking it a matter more properly belonging to the consul, I have done nothing in it.

I have continued to send you the English papers. You will often see falsehoods in them respecting what I say and do, &c. You know those papers too well to make any contradiction of such stuff necessary from me.

Mr Barclay is often ill, and I am afraid the settlement of our accounts will be, in his hands, a long operation. I shall be impatient at being detained here on that score, after the arrival of my successor. Would it not be well to join Mr Ridley with Mr Barclay for that service? He resides in Paris, and seems active in business. I know not indeed whether he would undertake it, but wish he may.

The finances here are embarra.s.sed, and a new loan is proposed by way of lottery, in which it is said by some calculators, the King will pay at the rate of seven per cent. I mention this to furnish you with a fresh convincing proof against cavillers of the King's generosity towards us, in lending us six millions this year at five per cent, and of his concern for our credit, in saving by that sum the honor of Mr Morris's bills, while those drawn by his own officers abroad have their payment suspended for a year after they become due. You have been told that France might help us more liberally if she would. This last transaction is a demonstration of the contrary.

Please to show these last paragraphs to Mr Morris, to whom I cannot now write, the notice of this ship being short, but it is less necessary, as Mr Grand writes him fully.

With great esteem, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

_P. S._ Mr Laurens is just arrived.

CHARLES J. FOX TO B. FRANKLIN.

St James's, April 19th, 1783.

Sir,

Although it is unnecessary for me to introduce to your acquaintance a gentlemen so well known to you as Mr Hartley, who will have the honor of delivering to you this letter, yet it may be proper for me to inform you, that he has the full and entire confidence of his Majesty's Ministers upon the subject of his mission.

Permit me, Sir, to take this opportunity of a.s.suring you how happy I should esteem myself, if it were to prove my lot to be the instrument of completing a real and substantial reconciliation between two countries, formed by nature to be in a state of friendship one with the other, and thereby to put the finishing hand to a building, in laying the first stone of which I may fairly boast that I had some share.

I have the honor to be, with every sentiment of regard and esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

C. J. FOX.