merchant, intimately acquainted with Franklin.[1] Ultimately the choice of the Cabinet fell upon Mr. Richard Oswald of Auchencruive, a well-known Scotch merchant in the city of London. He had originally become known as a contractor during the Seven Years' War. Being dissatisfied with the manner in which his business was done, he went to Germany himself, and acted as Commissary General of the army of the Duke of Brunswick. In 1759 he purchased the estate of Auchencruive in Ayrshire, and marrying Miss Mary Ramsay he became through her possessed of extensive estates in America and the West Indies.[2] Owing to his connection with those countries he had already been frequently consulted by the Government during the war. In 1777 he had visited Paris, and made acquaintance with both Vergennes and Franklin. He was known as holding very liberal views on economic and commercial questions, being a disciple of Adam Smith, to whom he owed his introduction to the new Secretary of State.[3]
He left England with a letter from Shelburne to Franklin, which ran as follows:—
"I find myself returned to nearly the same situation, which you remember me to have occupied nineteen years ago, and should be very glad to talk to you, as I did then and afterwards in 1767, upon the means of promoting the happiness of mankind; a subject much more agreeable to my nature than the best concerted plans for spreading misery and devastation. I have had a high opinion of the compass of your mind and of your foresight. I have often been beholden to both, and shall be glad to be so again, so far as is compatible with your situation.
- ↑ Rockingham to Shelburne, April 1782.
- ↑ There is no authority for the statement in the Cornwallis Correspondence (i. 135, note), that Miss Mary Ramsay was the heroine of Burns's song:
"O wat ye wha's in yonder town."
The "Lucy" of the above song was the first wife of another Mr. Richard Oswald, and the daughter of Mr. Wynne Johnston. The marriage took place in 1793, and she died at Lisbon in 1797. Mr. Richard Oswald, the Commissioner, died in 1784 (see infra, p. 287). Whether he had met Franklin before his visit to Paris in 1782 is doubtful. Caleb Whitefoord, who accompanied him, says positively that Oswald and Franklin had not previously met; but Oswald in his Journal speaks of an earlier interview in 1777, and of reminding Franklin of it. (Whitefoord Papers, 193; Franklin's Works, viii. 461; Sir George Cornwall Lewis, Administrations of Great Britain, 82).
- ↑ Sir G. C. Lewis, Administrations of Great Britain, 81.
