D. Hartley, esq. to the American Ministers, June 14, 1783 - 364 From the same to the same, June 20, 1783 Answer to ditto The American Ministers to D. Hartley, esq. July 17, 1783 371 to R. R. Livingston, esq. July, 1783 - 379 - David Hartley, esq. to the American Ministers, Paris, Au- gust 12, 1783 - Dr. Franklin to Count de Vergennes, August 16, 1783 ib. D. Hartley, esq. to the American Ministers, August 29, 1783 ib. DEFINITIVE TREATY between Great Britain and the Answer to the foregoing, Sept. 5, 1783 Dr. Franklin to D. Hartley, esq. Sept. 7, 1783 to the same, Sept. 6, 1783 ib. E. Boudinot, esq. to Dr. Franklin, enclosed in the foregoing ib. The American Ministers to D. Hartley, esq. Sept. 7, 1783 397 D. Hartley, esq. to Dr. Franklin; Bath, Sept. 24, 1783 to the Hon. Rob. Morris, esq. Dec. 25, 1783 D. Hartley, esq. to Dr. Franklin, Feb. 23, 1784 Dr. Franklin to Charles Thomson, esq. Secretary of Con- D. Hartley, esq. to Dr. Franklin; Paris, June 1, 1784 Dr. Franklin to D. Hartley, esq. June 2, 1784 W. Carmichael, esq. to Dr. Franklin'; Madrid, April 27, to the same; Madrid, July 18, 1780 MEMOIRE DE SIR JOHN DALRYMPLE, ou Projet .428 PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. PART III. LETTERS RELATING TO NEGOCIATIONS FOR PEACE, &c. TO DAVID HARTLEY, ESQ. M.P. DEAR SIR, Passy, near Paris, Oct. 14, 1777. I received duly your letter of May 2, 77, including a copy of one you had sent me the year before, which never came to hand, and which it seems has been the case with some I wrote to you from America. Filled though our letters have always been with sentiments of good-will to both countries, and earnest desires of preventing their ruin and promoting their mutual felicity, I have been apprehensive that if it were known a correspondence subsisted between us, it might be attended with inconvenience to you. I have therefore been backward in writing, not caring to trust the post, and not well knowing who else to trust with my letters. But being now assured of a safe conveyance, I venture to write to you, especially as I think the subject such a one as you may receive a letter upon without censure. VOL. II A Happy should I have been, if the honest warnings I gave of the fatal separation of interests as well as of affections, that must attend the measures commenced while I was in England, had been attended to, and the horrid mischief of this abominable war been thereby prevented. I should still be happy in any successful endeavors for restoring peace, consistent with the liberties, the safety, and the honor of America. As to our submitting to the government of Great Britain, it is vain to think of it. She has given us by her numberless barbarities (by her malice in bribing slaves to murder their masters, and savages to massacre the families of farmers, with her baseness in rewarding the unfaithfulness of servants, and debauching the virtue of honest seamen intrusted with our property) in the prosecution of the war, and in the treatment of the prisoners, so deep an impression of her depravity, that we never again can trust her in the management of our affairs and interests. It is now impossible to persuade our people, as I long endeavored, that the war was merely ministerial, and that the nation bore still a good-will to us. The infinite number of addresses printed in your gazettes all approving the conduct of your government towards us, and encouraging our destruction by every possible means, the great majority in parliament constantly manifesting the same sentiments, aud the popular public rejoicings on occasion of any news of the slaughter of an innocent and virtuous people fighting only in defence of their just rights; these, together with the recommendations of the same measures by even your celebrated moralists and divines in their writings and sermons, that are still approved and applauded in your great national assemblies, all join in convincing us that you are no longer the magnanimous enlightened nation we once esteemed you, and that you are unfit and unworthy to govern us, as not being able to goveru your own passions. But, as I have said, I should be nevertheless happy in seeing peace restored. For though if my friends and the friends of liberty and virtue, who still remain in England, could be drawn out of it, a continuance of this war to the ruin of the rest would give me less concern, I cannot, as that removal is impossible, but wish for peace for their sakes, as well as for the sake of humanity and preventing further carnage. This wish of mine, ineffective as it may be, induces me to mention to you that between nations long exasperated against each other in war, some act of generosity and kindness towards prisoners on one side, has softened resentment and abated animosity on the other, so as to bring on an accommodation. You in England, if you wish for peace, have at present the opportunity of trying this means, with regard to the prisoners now in your gaols. They complain of very severe treatment: they are far from their friends and families, and winter is coming on, in which they must suffer extremely if continued in their present situation, fed scantily on bad provisions, without warm lodging, clothes, or fire; and not suffered to invite or receive visits from their friends, or even from the humane and charitable of their enemies. I can assure you from my own certain knowledge, that your people, prisoners in America, have been treated with great kindness: they have been served with the same rations of wholesome provisions with our own troops; comfortable lodgings have been provided for them, and they have been allowed large bounds of villages in the healthy air, to walk and amuse themselves with on their parole. Where you have thought fit to employ contractors to supply your people, these contractors have been protected and aided in their operations. Some considerable act of kindness towards our people would take off the reproach of inhumanity in that respect from the nation, and leave it where it ought with more certainty to lay, on the conductors of your 1 |
