public credit hangs, put it totally out of our power to make any great exertions without the immediate supply of money.'

"*

Such were the favourable diplomatic and military British diplomatic influences assisting the Ministry of Great Britain in and military these negotiations. But there was then no masterful influences. or Palmerstonian mind moulding British diplomacy.

Shelburne's

The absence of even an advisory control is apparent in the confession made by Lord Shelburne to Mr. Oswald, Lord a month before the Treaty was signed : "As you confession. desire to be assisted by my advice, I should act with great insincerity if I did not convey to you that I find it difficult, if not impossible, to enter into the policy of all you recommend upon the subject, both of the fisheries and the boundaries." ↑ He had previously informed him: "We have put the greatest confidence His great ever placed in man in the American Commissioners." + confidence in No wonder, therefore, that, after these admissions, CommisMessrs. Oswald and Vaughan were enabled to give effect to their unpatriotic policy respecting Canada, The result. and to concede to the United States more than was believed possible by that nation, or their European allies.

+ the U. S.

sioners.

Mr. Jay, suspecting that M. de Vergennes was Mr.Vaughan's "plotting with Fitzherbert in order to exclude the new mission New England fishermen from the Newfoundland banks, and to keep the valley of the Ohio for England," § induced Mr. Vaughan to return to England T

and "tell Lord Shelburne of the American sentiment and resolution respecting these matters." * To which Mr. Adams added his advice: "I desired himbetween him and ine-to consider whether we could have any real peace with Canada or Nova Scotia in the hands of the English."

He chamMr. Vaughan accepted the commission of Messrs. pions American interests. Jay and Adams, to champion American interests, and

Canada's reduced strip of territory.

to impress upon Lord Shelburne "the necessity of taking a decided and manly part respecting America," and not "seek to secure the possession of vast tracts of wilderness." He was disastrously successful; and Lord Shelburne and his colleagues thereupon consented to grant "a confinement of the boundaries of Canada" to a narrow strip of territory along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. In authorizing Mr. Oswald to so agree, Mr. Secretary Townshend said: "The third article must be understood and expressed to be confined to the limits of Canada as before the Act of 1774."+

The Act referred to, known as "The Quebec Act," was passed on the 13th January, 1774, prior to the Revolution, and described the boundaries of Canada from the Bay of Chaleurs on the Atlantic, to the St Lawrence, on more southerly lines than the present Treaty boundary; thence up the St. Lawrence River, and through Lake Ontario and the Niagara River into Lake Erie, to the point where the boundary of Pennsylvania intersected its shore, thence southward, along that boundary, to the Ohio River, and down it to its

confluence with the Mississippi, and thence turning northward, through the Mississippi River, to the Hudson's Bay Territories. *

Acting on the Foreign Secretary's instructions, Mr. Mr. Oswald agrees to Mr. Oswald provisionally agreed to the outlines of the Jay's draft Treaty of Independence drafted by Mr. Jay; and then treaty. transmitted them to Mr. Secretary Townshend with the "Minutes regarding the Treaty with the Commissioners of the Colonies, and what is required of me by His Majesty's Ministers on that head," in which he reported "the articles said to be necessary and indispensable," as follows:

"(1) Independence, supposed to be granted as a He advises Preliminary. (2) A settlement of the boundaries Canadian between the Thirteen States and the King's Colonies, lands to U. S. (3) A cession to the Thirteen States, or to Congress, of that part of Canada, that was added to it by the Act of Parliament in the year 1774, said to be necessary and indispensable." "If not granted there would be a good deal of difficulty in settling the boundaries of the Thirteen States, especially on their western frontier, as the said addition sweeps round behind them; and I make no doubt a refusal would occasion a particular Refusal grudge, as a deprivation of an extent of valuable territory the Provinces had counted upon, and only waiting to be settled and taken into their respective Governments. I shall therefore suppose this demand will be

And as visable articles:"

granted, upon certain conditions." Mr. Oswald also "ad- reported the Doctor's "advisable articles, and proper to reconcile the Americans to a cordial and friendly correspondence with Great Britain, and which he thought were necessary to erase those impressions of resentment for past injuries which otherwise must remain on the minds of the inhabitants of those colonies for ages to Moneyindem-come, viz.: (1) £500,000 or £600,000 as indemnification to the sufferers of the Thirteen States, for burning

nification.

and destroying their towns, houses and other property. Parliament's (2) Some sort of acknowledgment, in an Act of Parliasympathy for misfortunes ment or otherwise, of our concern for those misfor

of U. S.

U. S. ships and trade equal to British.

tunes. (3) American ships and trade to be on the same footing in England and Ireland as our ships, and trade. (4) A surrender to Congress of every part of the remainder of Canada, after the said reduction to the Surrender of limits preceding 1774, reserving to Great Britain a whole of Can-full freedom of fishing, and of imports and exports in

ada to U.

general, free of all charges of import or other duties." * Mr. Oswald's ready assent to the cession of Canada and Nova Scotia, desired by Dr. Franklin, appears to have suggested to that astute diplomatist less conciliatory demands; for Mr. Oswald goes on to say: "In April, when I first came over, Dr. Franklin mentioned the reservation of the Canada lands, only as a thing very desirable for the sake of preventing disturbances and quarrels between the inhabitants living under different governments; and he proposed, in case the grant was made, that the lands should be sold, and the

of Canada,"

money applied for the relief of the sufferers on both sides, as expressly specified in a writing which he put into my hands with a liberty of perusal when necessary. Since then, and particularly in July last, he proposed that these back lands of Canada should be given up, "Back lands: and no allowance made out of that fund for the suffer- south of the ers on both sides. But, on the contrary, that a sum of lakes, to be given up. money (£500,000 to £600,000) should be granted by Great Britain for the sufferers in the American cause. I am afraid it will not be possible to bring him back to the proposition made in April, although I shall try it. Meantime I can plead that by resigning the sovereignty Mr. Oswald into the hands of Congress, the purpose for which he pleads for wished to have these additional lands given up (being to Congress. that of preventing quarrels amongst the inhabitants), will not be disappointed, since Congress may settle them in any manner they think proper, whatever way the value or price of the land is disposed of." *

cession

Such pleading of the American cause by a British Effect on the

British Cabi

plenipotentiary seems to have aroused the indignation net. of some members of Lord Shelburne's Cabinet. "Richmond and Keppel were very bitter against Oswald, who, they declared, was only an additional American negotiator, and they proposed to recall him. This Shelburne and Townshend refused to do, as they especially desired that Oswald should be at Paris to negotiate a commercial treaty." +

Diplomatic disaster to British and Canadian interests Diplomatic now seemed imminent. Mr. Jay, having obtained Mr. disaster to Oswald's ready assent, drafted the Treaty, which the interests the

latter forwarded to London as "a true copy of what has

Canadian

result.