The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 5

"The officers were to retain their side arms and private property of every kind, but all property obviously belonging to inhabitants of the United States to be subject to be reclaimed; the soldiers to be supplied with the same rations as were allowed to soldiers in the service of Congress. Cornwallis endeavoured to obtain permission for the British and German troops to return to their respective countries, under no other restrictions than an engagement not to serve against France or America. He also tried to obtain an indemnity for those of the inhabitants who had joined him; but he was obliged to recede from the former, and also to consent that the loyalists in his camp should be given up to the unconditional mercy of their countrymen. His lords.h.i.+p, nevertheless, obtained (from Was.h.i.+ngton) permission for the _Bonetta_ sloop of war to pa.s.s unexamined to New York. This gave an opportunity of screening such of the loyalists as were most obnoxious to the Americans." (Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap.

xxv., pp. 454, 455.)

"The regular troops of France and America, employed in this siege, consisted of about 7,000 of the former (besides s.h.i.+ps and seamen), and 5,500 of the latter; and they were a.s.sisted by about 4,000 militia. The troops of every kind that surrendered prisoners of war were about 7,000; but so great was the number of the sick and wounded, that there were only 3,800 capable of bearing arms."--_Ib._, p. 455.]

[Footnote 54: During the discussion on this question, it had been argued that the Americans are fed, clothed, and paid by France; they are led on by French officers; the French and the American armies are incorporated into one; it was merely a locality that should give name to a war.

France had formerly been fought with success in Germany, and there could be no solid objection to fighting her in America. General Conway argued that French troops did not cost more than 40 per man a year, while the expense of the English troops cost 100 per man a year. General Conway reminded the House that though seventy-three thousand men were voted and paid for, we had never above half that number in actual service.

Government had, therefore, only to complete the regiments, and they would have more men in America than ever they had before. (Annual Register of Parliament for 1782, pp. 158-161.)]

[Footnote 55: Annual Register of Parliament for 1782, Vol. XXIX., p.

173.]

[Footnote 56: Abridged from the Parliamentary Register for 1782, Vol.

XXV., Chap. vii. See also Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol.

VII., Chap. lxv.

Lord Mahon concludes his account of this Administration as follows:

"Thus ended Lord North's Administration of twelve years. It is certainly strange, on contemplating these twelve years, to find so many harsh and rigorous measures proceed from the most gentle and good-humoured of Prime Ministers. Happy, had but greater firmness in maintaining his own opinions been joined to so much ability in defending opinions even when not his own.

"Even as to the disasters and miscarriages, however, which could not be denied in his Administration, the friends of Lord North contended that in truth he was not answerable for them. The points in his favour were argued a few days before his fall by Mr. George Onslow in the House of Commons. 'Why,' said Mr. Onslow, 'have we in this war with America such ill success? Mainly,' he continued, 'from the support and countenance given in that House to American rebellion. The army of Was.h.i.+ngton had been called by the Opposition "our army;" the cause of the Americans had been called "the cause of liberty;" and one gentleman (this was Mr.

Burke), while lavis.h.i.+ng his praises on Dr. Franklin and Mr. Laurens, had declared he would prefer a prison with them to freedom in company with those who were supporting the cause of England.' But this vindication, though spirited, nay, though true, is faulty; because, though true, it is not the whole truth; because it overlooks what no statesman should--the certainty that when free principles are at stake, dissensions will always arise in a free country."--_Ib._, pp. 209, 210.]

[Footnote 57: I have not a shadow of doubt, that had the leaders in Congress adhered to their pretensions of contending and fighting for British const.i.tutional rights, as aforetime, instead of renouncing those rights and declaring Independence in 1776, the changes which took place in the Administration in England in 1783 would have taken place in 1777; for the corrupt Administration showed as strong symptoms of decline, and was as manifestly "tottering to its fall" in the parliamentary session which commenced in 1776, as it did in the session which commenced in 1782. In both cases its predictions and a.s.sured successes had been completely falsified; in both cases the indignation of the nation was aroused against the Administration, and the confidence of Parliament was on the point of being withdrawn in 1776-77, as it was withdrawn in the session of 1782-83; but in 1776, the Congress, instead of adhering to its heretofore professed principles, was induced by its leaders, as related in Chapter xxvi., to renounce its former principles; to falsify all its former professions to its advocates in England and fellow-subjects in America; to renounce the maintenance of the const.i.tutional rights of British subjects; to adopt a Declaration of Independence, of eternal separation from England; to extinguish the national life of the British empire and the unity of the Anglo-Saxon race, and seek an alliance with their own and Great Britain's hereditary enemies for a war upon their mother country, which had protected them for a hundred years against the French and Spaniards, who had also employed and rewarded the Indians to destroy them.]

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATION IN ENGLAND--CHANGE OF POLICY FOR BOTH ENGLAND AND THE COLONIES--PEACE NEGOTIATIONS AT PARIS--THE CAUSE OF THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS.

During the adjournment of Parliament from the 24th to the 28th of March, the new Administration was formed, and announced in the Commons on the 28th, when the House adjourned over the Easter holidays, to give time for the re-election of such members as had accepted office. The King first sent for the Earl of Shelburne to form a new Administration, naming some members of it; but the Earl of Shelburne declined, as unable to form an Administration upon such conditions, and recommended the King to send for the Marquis of Rockingham. The King refused to see Rockingham face to face, but requested Shelburne to be the bearer of a message to him; but Shelburne only consented on the condition of "full power and full confidence." "Necessity," relates the King, "made me yield to the advice of Lord Shelburne." Before accepting the offer of First Lord of the Treasury, the Marquis of Rockingham, without neglecting some minor matters, stipulated that there should be no veto to the independence of America.[58] But it was nearly three months before an Act pa.s.sed the Commons authorizing peace with America, and the acknowledgment of American Independence, and it was nearly a year before the treaty for that purpose was agreed upon.

In the meantime, "Immediately before the fall of Lord North's Ministry, in antic.i.p.ation of that event, Dr. Franklin had written from Paris to Lord Shelburne with general expressions of his pacific views. On receiving that letter, Lord Shelburne, then Secretary of State, sent to Paris, as agent, Mr. Richard Oswald, a London merchant well versed in American affairs. Dr. Franklin readily conferred with Mr. Oswald, and put into his hands a paper drawn up by himself, suggesting that, in order to produce a thorough reconciliation, and to prevent any future quarrel on the North American continent, England should not only acknowledge the thirteen united States, but concede to them the Province of Canada. Such a project was not likely to find favour in the eyes of any British statesman. Mr. Oswald, however, undertook to return to England and lay it before his chief, Dr. Franklin, at his departure, expressing an earnest hope that all future communications to himself might pa.s.s through the same hands.

"Under these circ.u.mstances, the Cabinet determined that Mr. Oswald should go back to France and carry on the treaty with Franklin, though by no means with such concessions as the American philosopher desired."[59]

After the termination of hostilities between Great Britain and the colonies, the American Commissioners evinced a desire to treat with England alone. Mr. Oswald, as early as July, 1782, wrote privately to Lord Shelburne, "The Commissioners of the colonies have shown a desire to treat and to end with us on a separate footing from the other Powers." "The separate negotiation thus arising was delayed," says Lord Mahon, "first by the severe illness of Dr. Franklin, and next by some points of form in the commission of Mr. Oswald. When at length the more solid part of the negotiation was commenced, the hints of Franklin for the cession of Canada were quietly dropped, with greater case from their having been transmitted in a confidential form. It is also worthy of note that Lord Shelburne prevailed, in his desire of acknowledging the independence of the United States, by an article of the treaty, and not, as Mr. Fox had wished, by a previous declaration."

The two most difficult questions of the treaty related to the fis.h.i.+ng grounds of Newfoundland, and the Loyalists or "Tories," as they were called. The English were unwilling to concede the use of the fis.h.i.+ng grounds, but the Americans were firm; the result was, that by the provisions of the treaty it was agreed that the Americans should have the right to take fish on the banks of Newfoundland, but not to dry or cure them on any of the King's settled dominions.[60]

But the question which transcended all others in importance, with which this work has chiefly to do, was that of the Loyalists--a cla.s.s which, by the testimony of American historians themselves, const.i.tuted, at the beginning of the war, a majority of the population of the colonies.

Their numbers had been greatly reduced from various causes during the war; they had been plundered and scattered by the alternate ascendancy of opposite parties; they had all of them suffered in their property and liberty; many of them had suffered imprisonment, and not a few of them had been executed as criminals for preferring their oath of allegiance and connection with the mother country to a renunciation of their former profession of faith, and absolute submission to a newly self-created authority of rule and a new political creed. At the conclusion of the war, and in the treaty of peace, "the question of Loyalists or Tories,"

says Lord Mahon, "was, as it ought to be, a main object with the British Government to obtain, if possible, some rest.i.tution to the men who, in punishment for their continued allegiance to the King, had found their property confiscated and their persons banished. But from the first Dr.

Franklin held out no hopes of any satisfaction on that point. 'The Commissioners,' he said, 'had no such power, nor had even Congress.'[61]

They were willing that Congress should, with certain modifications, recommend those indemnities to the several States; and, as one of the negotiators from England tells us, they to the last 'continued to a.s.sert that the recommendation of Congress would have the effect we proposed.'

The British diplomatists persevered in their original demand, and at one time there seemed a probability that the negotiations might break off, chiefly on this ground. Twice was Mr. Strachey, the Undersecretary of State, an able and experienced man, dispatched to Paris to aid Mr.

Oswald with his counsel and co-operation. But at last the mind of Franklin, ever ingenious and fertile of resources, devised a counter scheme. He said that he would allow the losses which the Loyalists had suffered, provided another account were opened of the mischief they had done, as of slaves carried off, or houses burned; new Commissioners to be appointed to strike a balance between the two computations. At this formidable proposal, involving an endless train of discussions and disputes, the negotiators from England finally gave way."[62]

This account of the negotiation in regard to the United Empire Loyalists, taken from Lord Mahon's impartial history, is corroborated in all essential particulars by American historians. Mr. Bancroft says that "Franklin having already explained that nothing could be done for the Loyalists by the United States, as their estates had been confiscated by laws of particular States, which Congress had no power to repeal, he further demonstrates that Great Britain had forfeited every right to intercede for them by its conduct and example, to which end he read to Oswald the orders of the British in Carolina for confiscating and selling the lands and property of all patriots under the direction of the military; and he declared definitely that, though the separate governments might show compa.s.sion where it was deserved, the American Commissioners for Peace could not make compensation of refugees a part of the treaty."

"This last demand (adequate indemnity for the confiscated property of loyal refugees) touched alike the sympathy and the sense of honour of England. The previous answer, that the Commissioners had no power to treat on the business of the Loyalists, was regarded as an allegation that though they claimed to have full power, they were not plenipotentiaries; that they were acting under thirteen separate sovereignties, which had no common head. To meet the exigence, Shelburne proposed either an extension of Nova Scotia to the Pen.o.bscot, or Kennebec, or the Saco, so that a province might be formed for the reception of Loyalists; or that a part of the money to be received from sales of the Ohio lands might be applied to their subsistence."

"On the 29th of November, 1782, Strachey, Oswald, and Fitzherbert, on the one side, and Jay, Franklin, Adams, and for the first time Laurens, on the other, came together for their last word at the apartments of Jay. The American Commissioners agreed that there should be no future confiscations nor prosecutions of Loyalists, that all pending prosecutions should be discontinued, and that Congress should recommend to the several States and their Legislatures, on behalf of refugees, amnesty and the rest.i.tution of their confiscated property." "On the 30th, the Commissioners of both countries signed and sealed fair copies of the Convention." "The treaty was not a compromise, nor a compact imposed by force, but a free and perfect solution and perpetual settlement of all that had been called in question."[63]

Dr. Ramsay observes: "From the necessity of the case, the Loyalists were sacrificed, nothing further than a simple recommendation for rest.i.tution being stipulated in their favour. * * The case of the Loyalists was undoubtedly a hard one, but unavoidable from the complex Const.i.tution of the United States. The American Ministers engaged, as far as they were authorized, and Congress did all they const.i.tutionally could; but this was no more than simply to recommend their case to the several States, for the purpose of making them rest.i.tution. To have insisted on more, under such circ.u.mstances, would have been equivalent to saying that there should be no peace. It is true, much more was expected from the recommendations of Congress than resulted from them; but this was not the consequence of deception, but of misunderstanding the principles of the confederation. In conformity to the letter and spirit of the treaty, Congress urged, in strong terms, the propriety of making rest.i.tution to the Loyalists, but to procure it was beyond their power. * * There were doubtless among the Loyalists many worthy characters, friends of peace and lovers of justice. To such rest.i.tution was undoubtedly due, and to many such it was made; but it is one of the many calamities incident to war, that the innocent, from the impossibility of discrimination, are often involved in the same distress with the guilty.

"The return of the Loyalists to their former places of residence was as much disrelished by the Whig citizens of America as the proposal for reimbursing their confiscated property. In sundry places Committees were formed, who, in an arbitrary manner, opposed their peaceable residence.

The sober and dispa.s.sionate citizens exerted themselves in checking these irregular measures; but such was the violence of party spirit, and so relaxed were the sinews of government, that, in opposition to legal authority and the private interference of the judicious and moderate, many indecent outrages were committed on the persons and property of the returning Loyalists.

"Nor were these all the sufferings of those Americans who had attached themselves to the royal cause. Being compelled to depart from their native country, many of them were obliged to take up their abodes in the inhospitable wilds of Nova Scotia, or on the barren sh.o.r.es of the Bahama Islands. Parliamentary relief was extended to them; but this was obtained with difficulty, and distributed with a partial hand. Some, who invented plausible tales of loyalty and distress, received much more than they ever possessed; while others, less artful, were not half reimbursed for their actual losses."[64]

Mr. Hildreth remarks, under date of September, 1783, "that at New York a general release of prisoners had taken place on both sides; but the necessity of finding transports for the numerous Loyalists a.s.sembled there protracted the evacuation of New York. In consequence of laws still in force against them, several thousand American Loyalists found it necessary to abandon their country. A considerable portion of these exiles belonged to the wealthier cla.s.ses; they had been officials, merchants, large landholders, conspicuous members of the colonial aristocracy. Those from the North settled princ.i.p.ally in Nova Scotia or Canada, provinces the politics of which their descendants continued to control until quite recently. Those from the South found refuge in the Bahamas and other West India islands. Still objects of great popular odium, the Loyalists had little to expect from the stipulated recommendations of Congress in their favour. Some of the States, whose territory had been longest and most recently occupied by the enemy, were even inclined to enact new confiscations."[65]

In each and all of these historical statements it is clearly admitted that the claim of the Loyalists to compensation for loss of property was founded in equity, as well as in national policy. This is sanctioned by the admission of the American Commissioners and the recommendation of Congress. The want of power in Congress to do what is admitted to be an act of justice to the Loyalists is the plea for not restoring them the property which had gone into the hands of their opponents, who were proportionally enriched thereby. It was left to local avarice and local resentment to deal with the property of banished exiles.

What was claimed by and in behalf of the Loyalists accorded with the practice of even modern nations, as well as with the sentiments of humanity. When the Dutch provinces a.s.serted their independence of Spain, and after a long and b.l.o.o.d.y war obtained the recognition of it, they cordially agreed to an act of oblivion, and even restored to those who had adhered to the cause of Spain, their property of every denomination that had been confiscated, or the full value of it. Even Spain herself had twice thus acted towards the province of Catalonia--first, on its revolting from that Crown, and calling in the a.s.sistance of France; and secondly, on its refusing to acknowledge the Bourbon family, at the beginning of the last century. Though the inhabitants had forfeited life and property, yet, on their return to obedience, life, possessions, laws and immunities remained inviolate. England had conducted herself in the same spirit towards that party in Ireland which had taken up arms in support of James the Second. No proscriptions took place, and every man, on submitting to Government, was admitted to the undisturbed enjoyment of his property. Had this spirit actuated, and these examples, with many others of like character, influenced the Americans, how much more honourable to them, and more consistent with sound policy, to efface at once all remembrance of internal discords, than to pursue, in the execrable spirit of revenge and avarice, those of their countrymen who differed from them in opinion in the late contest, and sided with Great Britain.[66] That the plea that Congress had no power in granting amnesty and compensation to the Loyalists was a mere pretext, is manifest from the fact that the Commissioners agreed that there should be no more confiscations or proscriptions against the Loyalists; for if the laws under which these prosecutions were inst.i.tuted and confiscations made were State laws, with which Congress had no power to interfere, how could the Congress Commissioners stipulate that there should be no more confiscations or proscriptions?

Dr. Franklin, the most experienced and ablest of the American diplomatists, was the most crafty and overbearing against England. At the beginning of the negotiations for peace, he demurely proposed, and half converted Mr. Oswald to his proposition, to concede Canada (which at that time meant all British North America) to the United States, though his commission related simply to the independency of the thirteen colonies; and when the British Cabinet vetoed this extra-official and extravagant proposition, Dr. Franklin and his colleagues overreached the ignorance and weakness of the British diplomatists by carefully constructed maps for the purpose of making the boundary lines between the proposed possessions of Great Britain and the United States on their northern and north-western frontiers. These lines were so ingeniously drawn as to take from Great Britain and include in the United States the immense and valuable territories, back settlements, and the whole country between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi, and which have since become the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, etc.--to not one foot of which the thirteen American colonies had the slightest claim--territories ample to compensate Loyalists for their losses and banishment, but whose interests, together with these most valuable possessions, were lost to Great Britain by the subserviency of the British Commissioner, Oswald (a London and American merchant), who looked to his own interests, and was the subservient tool and echo of Dr. Franklin. The above territories were a part of the domain of Congress, irrespective of any State, and therefore at the absolute disposal of Congress. Yet, with these immense accessions of resources, the American Commissioners professed that the Congress had no power or means to compensate the United Empire Loyalists for the confiscation and destruction of their property! One knows not at which most to marvel--the boldness, skill, and success of the American Commissioners, or the cowardice, ignorance, and recklessness of the British diplomatists.

The result of these negotiations was, that the adherents to Great Britain during the civil war were deprived of the amnesty and restoration of property upon any ground of right, as had been granted at the termination of civil strife by all civilized nations--to the restoration of what had been taken from them during the war--and turned over as suppliant culprits to the several States by whose laws their property had been confiscated, and themselves declared guilty of treason, and condemned to the death of traitors. Dr. Franklin, in the beginning of his negotiations, had proposed to give all that now const.i.tutes British North America to the United States, and thus leave to the British Loyalists not an inch of ground on which to place their feet; but all that was now left to them, as far as America was concerned, was to prostrate themselves as suppliants before the Legislatures of the several States, each of which was for the most part a seething cauldron of pa.s.sion and resentment against them.[67]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 58: The new Cabinet was composed as follows: The Marquis of Rockingham, First Commissioner of the Treasury; the Earl of Shelburne and Mr. Fox, Secretaries of State; Lord Camden, President of the Council; Duke of Grafton, Privy Seal; Lord John Cavendish, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Admiral Keppel, raised to be a Viscount, First Commissioner of the Admiralty; General Conway, Commander of the Forces; Duke of Richmond, Master General of the Ordnance. Lord Thurlow was continued in the office of Lord High Chancellor, and Mr. Dunning raised to the peerage under the t.i.tle of Lord Ashburton, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Mr. Burke was not made a member of the Cabinet, but was appointed to the lucrative office of Paymaster of the Forces, and was further gratified by the appointment of his son to a small office.

About six months after the formation of the new Cabinet the Marquis of Rockingham died, and the Earl of Shelburne was appointed to succeed him, when the Duke of Richmond, Mr. Fox, and Lord John Cavendish seceded from the Cabinet, and were succeeded by Mr. Thomas Townsend and Lord Graham as Secretaries of State, while the place of Lord John Cavendish, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was more than filled by Mr. Pitt.]

[Footnote 59: Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VII., Chap lxvi., pp. 265, 266.

"At Paris, the negotiations had been much impeded by the resignation of Mr. Fox and the return of Grenville. These events had, in many minds, cast a shade of doubt over the true intentions of the British Government. Lord Shelburne, however, renewed the most pacific a.s.surances, sending to Paris, in place of Mr. Grenville and conjointly with Mr. Oswald, Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert, well known in after years as Lord St. Helens. These gentlemen acted in amity and concert with each other, although, strictly speaking, negotiation with America was, as before, the province of Mr. Oswald, and negotiation with the European Powers the province of Mr. Fitzherbert. Dr. Franklin, on the other hand, had a.s.sociated with him three other American Commissioners, arriving in succession--first, Mr. Jay, from Spain; then Mr. Adams, from Holland; and finally, Mr. Laurens, from London.

"It became, ere long, apparent to the British agents that the Courts of France and Spain were by no means earnest and sincere in the wish for an immediate close of the war. With the hope of soon reducing Gibraltar, or of otherwise depressing England, they put forward at this time either inadmissible pretensions, or vague and ambiguous words. It therefore became an object of great importance to negotiate, if possible, a separate pacification with America. At first sight there appeared almost insuperable difficulties in the way of such a scheme. The treaty of alliance of February, 1778, between France and the United States, stipulated in the most positive terms that neither party should conclude a peace or truce with England, unless with the consent of the other party first obtained. Since that time the French, far from falling short of their engagement, had gone much beyond it. To say nothing of their despatch of a fleet and army, and besides their annual loans and advances to the United States, they had made, in 1781, a free gift of six millions of livres, and in the spring of 1782 granted another to the same amount.

"On the other hand, however, there was a strong temptation to treat without delay. War, if still waged, would be mainly for French and Spanish purposes. It could be made clear that when the independence of the Americans was fully established and secured, they had no interest anymore than England in continuing an unprofitable contest."--_Ib._, pp.

291-293.

"Moreover, there had sprung up in the minds of the American Commissioners at Paris a strong feeling of distrust and suspicion against their new allies. That feeling we find most plainly expressed by Mr. Adams in relating his own conversations with Mr. Oswald. 'You are afraid,' said Mr. Oswald to-day, 'of being made the tools of the Powers of Europe?' 'Indeed I am,' said I. 'What Powers?' said he. 'All of them,' said I.

"But in the minds of the American Commissioners, the distrust against France was more vehement than against any other State. The best American writers of the present day acknowledge that all surmises thence arising were, in truth, ill-founded; that the conduct of France towards the United States had been marked throughout not only by good faith and honour, but by generosity." (Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol.

VII., Chap. lxvi., pp. 293, 294.)]

[Footnote 60: In the preamble of the treaty, it was provided that "The treaty was not to be concluded until terms of peace shall be agreed upon between Great Britain and France." By this limitation (which was a mere form, as the provisional articles were to be meanwhile binding and effective), the Americans were in hopes of avoiding, at least of softening, their French allies. "The first Article acknowledged in the fullest terms the independence of the United States. The second fixed their boundaries, and certainly to their advantage. The third gave their people the right to take fish on all the banks of Newfoundland, but not to dry or cure them on any of the King's settled dominions in America.

By the fourth, fifth, and sixth Articles, it was engaged that Congress should earnestly recommend to the several Legislatures to provide for the rest.i.tution of all estates belonging to real British subjects who had not borne arms against them. All other persons were to be at liberty to go to any of the provinces and remain there for twelve months to wind up their affairs, the Congress also recommending the rest.i.tution of their confiscated property, on their repayment of the sums for which they had been sold. No impediment was to be put in the way of recovering _bona fide_ debts; no further prosecutions were to be commenced, no further confiscations made. It was likewise stipulated in the seventh and eighth Articles, that the English should at once withdraw their fleets and armies from every port or place which they still possessed within the limits of the United States; and that the navigation of the Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, should be for ever free and open to both parties." (Lord Mahon's History, etc., Vol. VII., Chap.

lxvi., pp. 297, 298.)

"It is not to be supposed that the French Government could view with unconcern the studied secrecy of this negotiation. The appearances of amity were, indeed, for the sake of mutual interest, kept up on either side. But thus did the Comte de Vergennes (the French Minister of Foreign Affairs) unbosom himself in writing to the French Minister at Philadelphia: '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 with the conduct of the commissioners. * * They have cautiously kept themselves at a distance from me. Whenever I have had occasion to see any one of them, and enquire 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.