only Cabinet Council at which you talked of resignation, and that you particularly desired that what passed then, should not be mentioned to the King, which it accordingly never has been by me. Subsequently to Lord Rockingham's death in every conversation I had the honour to have with you, the deliberation turned singly on the succession to the Treasury, without reference to any public point whatever. As to adverting to what has passed either in the Cabinet or in the closet I hold both highly improper, but the impropriety lies with those who make the appeal."[1]
Parliament rose on the 11th of July; and Shelburne, who in order to be constantly near London had hired the villa at Streatham, once the residence of the Thrales,[2] was able to give his undivided attention to the negotiations at Paris. Thither he despatched Benjamin Vaughan, the political economist,[3] an intimate friend of Franklin, to give private assurances to the latter that the change of Administration brought with it no change of policy. To Oswald himself, who did not anticipate that the point of independence once conceded, any difficult points would arise on the American negotiation, Shelburne wrote that he hoped to receive early assurances that his confidence in the sincerity and good faith of Franklin had not been misplaced and that he would concur in rendering effectual the great work in which their hearts and wishes were so equally interested. "I beg him to believe," the letter concluded, "that I can have no idea or design in acting towards him and his associates, but in the most liberal and honourable manner.[4]
On the 9th of July Franklin communicated to Oswald the outline of the conditions which he considered might
- ↑ Shelburne to Fox, July 1782.
- ↑ Autobiography of Mme. Piozzi, i. 105, ed. 1861.
- ↑ Vaughan was born in 1751 in Jamaica, the son of Samuel Vaughan, a merchant. He became acquainted with Shelburne through Benjamin Horne, the brother of John Home Tooke. He studied at Cambridge, where being a Unitarian, he was unable to take a degree. He also studied law at the Temple. Subsequently he returned to mercantile pursuits. Vaughan's wife was Sarah Manning, the aunt of Cardinal Manning. Vaughan studied mercantile questions theoretically as well as practically, and became a recognized authority as a political economist.
- ↑ Shelburne to Oswald, June 30th, 1782. Oswald to Shelburne, July 10th, 11th.
