placing them in different lights, in newspapers which are every where read, gives a great chance of establishing them. And we now find, that it is not only right to strike while the iron is hot, but that it is very practicable to heat it by continual striking."

United States, was to endeavour to produce a disposition in persons of influence there, to accept a reconciliation with Great Britain, on terms more favourable, or less humiliating, than those of absolute independency; and this suspicion soon after received a strong confirmation in the mind of Mr. Jay, upon his acciIn the month of June, 1782, Mr. Jones af- dentally noticing in a printed account of the terwards sir William Jones, so eminently dis- then recent proceedings of the "society for tinguished for his virtues, genius, and learn- constitutional information," which had been ing, came to Paris, accompanied by the late incautiously put into his hands by Mr. Jones, Mr. Paradise, with the intention of proceeding a communication made by the latter to this thence to America. These gentlemen had society, of his intention to leave England been long connected by a most intimate speedily on a mission greatly connected with friendship, and the object of this journey is the interests and welfare of his country. As stated by lord Teignmouth (in his life of the the editor has not been able to procure this former) to have been "professional, to pro- publication, he cannot pretend to give any cure the restitution of a very large estate of thing more than the import of the words of a client and friend, which had been attached this communication, which however made so by an order of the States, who had threatened strong an impression upon Mr. Jay, that he the confiscation of the property, unless the took the first opportunity of writing to his owner appeared in person to claim it." His friends in congress, &c. to put them on their lordship adds," This object is mentioned by guard against any attempts from Mr. Jones Mr. Jones in his correspondence, and his own for the purpose beforementioned. Probably evidence will be conclusive against some sur- this communication gave rise to the "surmises and insinuations, which, were propa-mises and insinuations" mentioned by lord gated respecting the motives of his intended Teignmouth. In fact, Mr. Paradise was not journey. The irresolution of his friend, in- in any want of a lawyer, and especially an creased by indisposition, prevented the execu- English lawyer; nor was his estate in Virtion of the plan, and Mr. Jones, after having ginia of the magnitude supposed by lord procured a passport from Franklin, the American minister at the court of France, returned to England through Normandy and Holland." Of sir William Jones's account of his motives for going to America, as given by him to his friends in England, the editor has no knowledge; but at Passy, where he and Mr. Paradise frequently partook of the hospitalities and conversation of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jones assigned no other motive for his intended voyage, than that of accompanying his friend, and gratifying his curiosity by seeing a country for whose rights he had been a decided advocate. Mr. Paradise had never been the client of Mr. Jones, notwithstanding their friendship, he having never been engaged in any law-suit in England, nor had he the smallest need of a lawyer in America, where nothing more was required than his presence, to avoid the penalty to which absent proprietors residing in a country at that time hostile, were made liable, unless they came to the United States within a limited time; a penalty which Mr. Paradise did in fact avoid, without any lawyer, and even without going to America, until nearly five years after the war had terminated. It could not, therefore, have been a professional object which actuated sir William Jones in this undertaking; and in fact, by some expressions which escaped from him in a conversation with Mr. Jay (one of the American plenipotentiaries), the latter strongly suspected, that the real purpose of this intended visit to the 14

Teignmouth, nor his finances in such a state as to enable him to defray the expenses of the voyage intended by Mr. Jones, and much less to afford him a compensation for leaving his then increasing professional business in England. But whatever may have been Mr. Jones's object in going to America, the failure of it, by Mr Paradise's timidity and unwil lingness to proceed further, after they had reached Nantes, was so displeasing to Mr. Jones, that it there produced a separation, and final termination of all intercourse between these gentlemen during the remainder of their lives.

While at Paris, Mr. Jones put into the hands of Dr. Franklin the following composition, entitled, A FRAGMENT OF POLYBIUS, which certainly was well calculated to promote that sort of reconciliation which is supposed to have been the real object of his intended voyage to the United States, and which, from its intrinsic merits, as well as the celebrity of the author, will, it is presumed, be acceptable to the readers of these memoirs. If to be considered as a diplomatic document, it is certainly of a very superior cast.-The allusions are evident.

A FRAGMENT OF POLYBIUS. From his Treatise on the Athenian Government. * * *

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"Athens had long been an object of universal admiration, and consequently of envy; her navy was invincible, her commerce ex

tensive; Europe and Asia supplied her with | ready obtained. I will yield to none of your wealth; of her citizens, all were intrepid, countrymen, my friend, in my love of liberty; many virtuous; but some too much infected but she seems more lovely to my eyes, when with principles unfavourable to freedom.Hence an oligarchy was, in a great measure, established; crooked councils were thought supreme wisdom; and the Athenians, having lost their true relish for their own freedom, began to attack that of their colonies, and of the states which they had before protected! Their arrogant claims of unlimited dominion, had compelled the Chians, Coans, Rhodians, Lesbians, to join with nine other small communities in the social war, which they began with inconceivable ardour, and continued with industry surpassing all example, and almost surpassing belief. They were openly assisted by Mausolus, king of Caria, to whose metropolis the united islands had sent a philosopher, named Eleutherion, eminent for the deepest knowledge of nature, the most solid judgment, most approved virtue, and most ardent zeal for the cause of general liberty. The war had been supported for three years with infinite exertions of valour on both sides, with deliberate firmness on the part of the allies, and with unabated violence on the part of the Athenians; who had, nevertheless, despatched commissioners to Rhodes, with intent to propose terms of accommodation; but the states (perhaps too pertinaciously) refused to hear any proposal whatever, without a previous recognition of their total independence by the magistrates and people of Athens. It was not long after this, that an Athenian, who had been a pupil of Isæus, together with Demosthenes, and began to be known in his country as a pleader of causes, was led by some affair of his clients to the capital of Caria. He was a man, unauthorised, unemployed, unconnected; independent in his circumstances as much as in his principles: admitting no governor, under Providence, but the laws; and no laws but those which justice and virtue had dictated, which wisdom approved, which his country had freely enacted. He had been known at Athens to the sage Eleutherion; and, their acquaintance being renewed, he sometimes took occasion in their conversations to lament the increasing calamities of war, and to express his eager desire of making a general peace on such terms as would produce the greatest good from the greatest evil; for this,' said he, would be a work not unworthy of the divine attributes, and if mortals could effect it, they would act like those beneficent beings, whom Socrates believed to be the constant friends and attendants of our species.'

she comes hand in hand with peace. From that union we can expect nothing but the highest happiness of which our nature is capable; and it is an union, which nothing now obstructs but-a mere word.

"Let the confederates be contented with the substance of that independence which they have asserted, and the word will necessarily follow.

"Let them not hurt the natural, and, perhaps, not reprehensible, pride of Athens, nor demand any concession, that may sink in the eyes of Greece, a nation to whom they are and must be united in language, in blood, in manners, in interest, in principles. Glory is to a nation, what reputation is to an individual; it is not an empty sound: but important and essential. It will be glorious in Athens to acknowledge her error in attempting to reduce the islands, but an acknowledgment of her inability to reduce them (if she be unable) will be too public a confession of weakness, and her rank among the states of Greece will instantly be lowered.

"He added, As to the united nations, I applaud, admire, and almost envy them; I am even tempted to wish that I had been born a Chian or a Rhodian; but let them be satisfied with the prize of virtue which they have alVOL. I.... X 14*

"But, whatever I might advise, if my advice had any chance of being taken, this I know, and positively pronounce, that while Athens is Athens, her proud but brave citizens will never expressly recognize the independence of the islands: their resources are no doubt exhaustible, but will not be exhausted in the lives of us and of our children. In this resolution all parties agree: I, who am of no party, dissent from them; but what is a single voice in so vast a multitude? Yet the independence of the United States was tacitly acknowledged by the very offer of terms, and it would result in silence from the natural operation of the treaty. An express acknowledgment of it is merely formal with respect to the allies; but the prejudices of mankind have made it substantial with respect to Athens.

"Let this obstacle be removed: it is slight, but fatal; and, whilst it lasts, thousands and ten thousands will perish. In war much will always depend upon blind chance, and a storm or sudden fall of snow may frustrate all your efforts for liberty; but let commissioners from both sides meet, and the islanders, by not insisting on a preliminary recognition of independence, will ultimately establish it for ever.

"But independence is not disunion.— Chios, Cos, Lesbos, Rhodes, are united, but independent on each other: they are connected by a common tie, but have different forms and different constitutions. They are gems of various colours and various properties, strung in one bracelet. Such an union can only be made between states, which, how

widely soever they differ in form, agree in Athenians, or of a smaller number chosen by one common property, freedom. Republics them.

nian citizens shall have seats, and power of debating and voting on questions of common concern, in the great assembly of the islands, and a proportionable number of islanders shall sit with the like power in the assembly at Athens.

may form alliances, but not a federal union, "6. "If it be thought necessary and found with arbitrary monarchies. Were Athens convenient, a proportionable number of Athegoverned by the will of a monarch, she could never be co-ordinate with the free islands; for such an union would not be dissimilarity, but dissonance: but she is and shall be ruled by laws alone, that is, by the will of the people, which is the only law. Her Archon, even when he was perpetual, had no essential properties of monarchy. The constitution of Athens, if we must define it, was then a republic with a perpetual administrator of its laws. Between Athens, therefore, and the freest states in the world, an union may naturally be formed.

"There is a natural union between her

and the islands, which the gods have made, and which the powers of hell cannot dissolve. Men, speaking the same idiom, educated in the same manner, perhaps, in the same place; professing the same principles; sprung from the same ancestors, in no very remote degree; and related to each other in a thousand modes of consanguinity, affinity, and friendship, such men (whatever they may say through a temporary resentment) can never in their hearts consider one another as aliens.

"Let them meet then with fraternal and pacific dispositions, and let this be the general ground-work and plan of the treaty.

"1. The Carians shall be included in the pacification, and have such advantages as will induce them to consent to the treaty rather than continue a hazardous war.

"2. The archon, senate, and magistrates of Athens shall make a complete recognition of rights of all the Athenian citizens of all orders whatever, and all former laws for that purpose shall be combined in one. There shall not be one slave in Attica.

"NOTE. [By making this a preliminary, the islanders will show their affection for the people of Athens; their friendship will be cemented and fixed on a solid basis; and the greatest good will be extracted, as I at first proposed, from the greatest evil.]

"3. There shall be a perfect co-ordination between Athens and the thirteen united islands, they considering her not as a parent, whom they must obey, but as an elder sister, whom they cannot help loving, and to whom they shall give pre-eminence of honour and co-equality of power.

"4. The new constitutions of the confederate islands shall remain.

"5. On every occasion requiring acts for the general good, there shall be an assembly of deputies from the senate of Athens and the congress of the islands, who shall fairly adjust the whole business, and settle the ratio of the contributions on both sides. This committee shall consist of fifty islanders and fifty

"NOTE. [This reciprocal representation will cement the union.]

"7. There shall be no obligation to make war but for the common interest.

"8. Commerce shall flow in a free course, for the general advantage of the united

powers.

"9. An universal unlimited amnesty shall be proclaimed in every part of Greece and Asia.

"This,' said the Athenian, is the rough sketch of a treaty founded on virtue and liberty. The idea of it still fills and expands my soul; and if it cannot be realized, I shall not think it less glorious, but shall only grieve more and more at the perverseness of mankind. May the eternal Being, whom the wise and the virtuous adore, and whose attribute it is to convert into good, that evil which his unsearchable wisdom permits, inspire all ranks of men to promote either this or a similar plan! If this be impracticable, O miserable human nature! But I am fully confident that, if*** more at large ** happiness of all.'

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"No more is extant of this interesting piece, upon which the commentary of the sage Polybius would have been particularly valuable in these times."

This classical and ingenious communication did not divert Dr. Franklin's fixed sentiments respecting the perfect independence of his country, as fully appears by several of his letters written immediately after to America, and particularly in one to Mr. secretary Livingston, of the 28th June, 1782, wherein he remarks, that the intentions of the British ministry had, for some weeks past, appeared somewhat equivocal and uncertain, and adds:

It looks as if, since their late success in the West Indies, they a little repented of the advances they had made in their declarations respecting the acknowledgment of our independence; and we have good information, that some of the ministry still flatter the king with the hope of recovering his sovereignty over us, on the same terms as are now making with Ireland. However willing we might have been at the commencement of this contest, to have accepted such conditions, be assured that we can have no safety in them at present. The king hates us most cordially.

About the same time, 20th May, 1778, he received an anonymous note inviting to an interview to the Garden of the Fountains, of which he took no notice.

If he is once admitted to any degree of power | be capricious." To which the doctor replied or government amongst us, however limited, |—“I thank you for your kind caution, but it will soon be extended by corruption, artifice, having nearly finished a long life, I set but and force, till we are reduced to absolute sub- little value on what remains of it. Like a jection; and that the more easily, as by re- draper when one cheapens with him for a ceiving him again for our king, we shall draw remnant, I am ready to say,-" As it it only upon ourselves the contempt of all Europe, the fag end, I will not differ with you about who now admire and respect us; and shall it; take it for what you please." Perhaps never again find a friend to assist us. There the best use such an old fellow could be put are, as reported, great divisions in the minis- to, is to make a martyr of him. try on other points as well as this; and those who aim at engrossing the power, flatter the king with this project of re-union; and it is said, have much reliance on the operation of private agents sent into America to dispose He received an argumentative letter from minds in favour of it, and to bring about Brussels, 1st July, of the same year, the ana separate treaty there with general Carle-swer to which will be found under this date ton." in the Foreign Correspondence; and another Strong suspicions were undoubtedly enter- of 3d Feb. 1779, which he closes with the tained by some of the American commission-humourous story of the Wreckers. ers, that Mr. Jones, under the particular influence of his friend and patron lord Shelburne, (then minister,) had really agreed to lend the assistance of his talents and exertions in aid of this object. How far such "surmises" are borne out by what has preceded, is left to the reader's decision. On his return to England, however, Mr. Jones thus expresses his sentiments on the subject of America, in a letter to lord Althorp, dated Oct. 5, 1782, as given by lord Teignmouth. "As to Ame-been in the church, a person passed and rerica, I know not what ***** thinks: but this I know, that the sturdy transatlantic yeomanry will neither be dragooned nor bamboozled out of their liberty."

The negotiations for peace with America had been going on at Passy, either directly or indirectly, ever since the late change of ministry in England. The particulars of the whole of these important transactions, and the letters and documents connected therewith, will be found in Dr. Franklin's PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE; concerning the negotiations for peace and commerce between Great Britain and the United States of America, for the reasons already given.

The doctor one day received a letter, inviting him to an interview in the church of Notre Dame, where he would find a man having a rose in his hand, who would let the rose fall, on the doctor's approach, as an identification of the writer. The doctor's first step was to communicate this letter to the minister of police, M. Lenoir, who advised him to go to Notre Dame at the hour indicated. About half an hour after the doctor had

passed him several times, but appearing to discover some agents of the police at no great distance, he precipitately retired out of the church, when after several rapid turns, he reached a hotel in the Rue Colombier, where he called for post horses, and drove off and was traced to Calais, where he embarked for Dover before the agents of the police could overtake him.

A case more remarkable was that of an English physician, who resided at Paris in apparent indifference to political affairs; his admiration of Dr. Franklin was professedly that of a philosopher, and in that character had found the usual urbanity of the doctor a passport to his familiar acquaintance.. In the progress of this intimacy, having tasted of the doctor's wines, he tendered as a small acknowledgment of courtesy some wine of a rare quality, which of course was accepted; but as the doctor had before been presented with medicated wine, he uniformly adopted the precaution to examine it, and on examination this wine of rare quality was found to contain an ample quantity of deadly poison. To have the premeditated assassin arrested was a matter of no difficulty, but the magnanimous Franklin preferred a course more generous and Mr. Hartley, in a postscript to a letter worthy of himself, he caused the villain to be of 23 April, 1778, hints,-"If tempestuous informed that his purpose was not accomplishtimes should come, take care of your own ed, but that his design was detected; and advissafety events are uncertain, and men may led him to quit Paris before the next morning,

At the end of half a century of independence, the rise and progress of the revolution may be viewed with the same temper as we read Vertot or Volney; and so the services and hazards of the great founders of the Republic should be preserved in history. In the correspondence of the doctor, while at Paris, will be found some examples of persuasion and artifice to undermine his principles and to awake his fears; an answer of his to David Hartley, displays at once the dignity of his mind and the characteristic playfulness of his imagination.

and France without delay; that if found of his feelings and sentiments on that ausafter the period proscribed he would be placed picious event.

in charge of the police; admonishing him to repent and reform and lead a correct life thereafter.

The revolt of the colonies produced an extreme animosity towards the Americans in England. There was always a large mass who, while they regretted the separation, held the principle of resistance to be just and right. No example can better illustrate the temper of the ministry and their adherents than the conversion of the celebrated Dr. Johnson to the views of the ministers, which he manifested in a well known pamphlet of which the title was Taxation no tyranny, But this pamphlet, however energetic and vehement, affords no more than the display of a partisan for a pension. In June 1781, being in company with Dr. Campbell an Episcopalian clergyman, and Baretti, a literary Italian of that day, the two latter had been in conversation concerning the Irish volunteers, who excited much notice in Europe at that period; Dr. Johnson who had sat listening to the conversation, abruptly broke in upon them, exclaiming, "What, sir, don't you call it disturbance to oppose legal government with arms in your hands, and compel it to make laws in your favour? Sir, I call it rebellion, as much as the rebellion in Scotland."

sist."

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Sir," replied Dr. Johnson, "the Irish do resist, they owe allegiance to the English parliament; they are a conquered nation; and had I been minister, would soon have made them submit to it-I would have done as Cromwell did; I would have burnt their cities, and roasted them in flames."

"To Robert R. Livingston.

"PASSY, Dec. 5, 1782.

"You desire to be very particularly acquainted with 'every step which tends to a negotiation.' I am, therefore, encouraged to send you the first part of the JOURNAL, which accidents, and a long severe illness, interrupted; but which, from notes I have by me, may be continued if thought proper. In its present state, it is hardly fit for the inspection of congress, certainly not for public view. I confide it therefore to your prudence.

"The arrival of Mr. Jay, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Laurens, relieved me from much anxiety, which must have continued if I had been left to finish the treaty alone; and it has given me the more satisfaction, as I am sure the business has profited by their assistance.

"Much of the summer was taken up in objecting to the powers given by Great Britain, and in removing those objections. The using any expressions that might imply an acknowledgment of our independence, seemed, at first, industriously to be avoided. But our refusing otherwise to treat, at length induced them to get over that difficulty: and then we came to the point of making propositions "I am exceedingly sorry," said Dr. Camp- Those made by Jay and me, before the arri bell, "to hear this from you, whom I always val of the other gentlemen, you will find in understood to be a friend of Ireland. The the paper No. 1, which was sent by the British Irish have a separate legislature, and they plenipotentiary to London for the king's conhave never indicated any inclination to re-sideration. After some weeks, an undersecretary of state, Mr. Strachey, arrived, with whom we had much contestation about the boundaries and other articles which be proposed; we settled some, which he carried to London, and returned with the propositions, some adopted, others omitted or altered, and new ones added; which you will see in paper No. 2. We spent many days in discussing and disputing, and at length agreed on and signed the PRELIMINARIES, which you will receive by this conveyance. The British ministers struggled hard for two points, that the favours granted to the royalists should be extended, and our fishery contracted. We silenced them on the first, by threatening to produce an account of the mischiefs done by those people; and as to the second, when they told us they could not possibly agree to it as we required it, and must refer it to the ministry in London, we produced a new article to be referred at the same time, with a note of facts in support of it, which you have, No. 3 The following are extracts from two letters Apparently it seemed that, to avoid the disof Dr. Franklin's, written shortly after the pre-cussion of this, they suddenly changed their liminaries were signed. They give a gen-minds, dropped the design of recurring to eral account of the manner in which the London, and agreed to allow the fishery as peace was brought about, and are expressive demanded.

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'Very horrid avowals," said Dr. Campbell, "but your advice to treat the Americans in that manner, appears not to have been altogether successful,-the times are altered!"

"Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "you say truly; the times are altered; for power is no where; our government is a government of influence, not of power; yet had we treated the Americans as we ought, and as they deserved, we should at once have razed their towns, and let them enjoy the forests. But when we should have roasted them as rebels, we only whipt them as children, and we did not succeed because my advice was not taken."