and that a definite determination for peace or war must be come to. He was convinced from the language and attitude of the French emissary, that his principals had no real intention of continuing the war for purely Spanish objects; he knew that a separate peace could now, whenever he chose, be concluded with America, and that France would then have to ask herself the question, whether in order to gain Gibraltar for Spain she would choose to encounter the yet formidable though reduced power of England. "Our finances," he said to Rayneval, "are impaired, but not so much so as those of France."[1]
Hoping to be able to announce both pacifications at the opening of the session, the Ministers resolved to prorogue Parliament from the 26th of November, the day for which it had been summoned, to the 5th of December. Their decision was communicated in a letter from Townshend to the Lord Mayor of London, which stated that the wish of the Ministers was to keep the country as fully informed as the circumstances of the case admitted of what was passing, and thereby to prevent speculation in the funds.[2] The correspondence of Shelburne and Townshend at this period with Oswald, Strachey, and Fitzherbert, reveals their constant anxiety to prevent the inventions of the numerous stock-jobbers, who kept rapidly passing between London and Paris, and disseminating false news in both cities, from taking effect on the public mind. The speculators, aware of this, revenged themselves by spreading abroad a report that the Prime Minister himself had been taking advantage of his official knowledge to speculate, and the Opposition hacks were not ashamed to lend themselves to the calumny.[3] One of the most celebrated of Gillray's caricatures represents him with a booted and spurred French courier on his left just arrived from Paris with the news that the Preliminaries were signed, and on his right a group of Jews waiting to receive the payment of the sums supposed to have been lent on the security of Shelburne House, and about to be
