Jay suspected Vergennes of being the secret cause of the refusal by England of a preliminary recognition of American independence, and of plotting with Fitzherbert in order to exclude the New England fishermen from the Newfoundland fishery and to keep the valley of the Ohio for England; nor was he far from the truth in regard to the ideas of the French minister. What Vergennes aimed at, was to delay the whole negotiation and to keep up the American alliance and the war, in order first to extort Gibraltar from England, and afterwards obtain some express acknowledgment of the Spanish claim to the Mississippi and of the French claim to the fisheries, by the threat of a refusal of further supplies to the Americans.[1]
On hearing of the difficulty which had sprung up in Paris, the Cabinet decided on rejecting Oswald's proposal, but in order to facilitate matters, expressed their willingness to accept the " necessary articles "of Franklin as the basis of the negotiation, thereby at once removing all Jay's apprehensions on the question of the boundaries and the fisheries, but explaining at the same time that the limits of Canada would under no circumstances be made narrower than under the Proclamation of 1763, and that the right of drying fish on the shores of Newfoundland would not be conceded to the American fishermen. The despatch in which Townshend communicated these points to Oswald concluded by saying, "His Majesty is pleased, for the salutary purposes of precluding all further delay and embarrassment of negotiation, to waive any stipulation by the treaty for the undoubted rights of the merchants whose debts accrued before the year 1775 and also for the claims of the refugees for compensation for their losses; as Dr. Franklin declares himself unauthorized to conclude upon that subject: yet His Majesty is well founded it is hoped in his expectation, that the several Colonies will unite in an equitable determination of points upon which the future opinion of the world, with respect
- ↑ Life of Jay, i. 144, 145.
