Strachey returned to Paris in the middle of November. It was known in London that the negotiation was reaching a crisis. "Our ultimatum is gone," Horace Walpole wrote to Mann on the 26th. During Strachey's absence the breach between France and the United States had been sensibly widened, for Vergennes had not only persisted in his views on the fishery and boundary questions, but had stated that in his opinion the demands of the American Commissioners on the subject of the Loyalists were unreasonable, and that France would not continue the war for American objects.[1] The American Commissioners, on the other hand, said they would not continue war for French and Spanish objects. "You are afraid," said Oswald to Adams, "of being made the tools of the Powers of Europe." "Indeed I am," replied Adams. "What Powers?" asked Oswald. "All of them," bluntly replied Adams.[2]
While Strachey was still in England various conversations had taken place between Oswald and the Commissioners, and at one of these Oswald suggested, that since Jay and his colleagues would not positively undertake to grant a restitution or compensation to the refugees and Loyalists, they might still add a clause to the treaty "of recommendation to the Congress in their favour in general"; but all to no purpose. On the return of Strachey to Paris, Oswald communicated the idea to him, and they resolved with the consent of Fitzherbert to bring it forward a second time.[3]
On the 28th November the negotiators met at Oswald's lodgings. Mr. Laurens, who had been ex-
- ↑ Fitzherbert to Grantham, November 5th, 1782. Vergennes to Laurens, October 14th, November 23rd, 1782. Oswald to Shelburne, November 15th, 1782. Shelburne to Townshend, November 22nd, 1782. Walpole Correspondence, viii. 309.
- ↑ Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, vi. 483.
- ↑ Oswald to Shelburne, November 15th, 1782. The efforts of Shelburne on the behalf of the American Loyalists were recognized by the alteration of the name of the town, harbour, and county of Port Roseway, Nova Scotia, into that of Shelburne. On the 27th of April 1783, 471 families in eighteen vessels left New York, arriving at Port Roseway on the 4th of May. In August Governor Parr visited the town, and proclaimed the alteration of its title. In the following year "an inundation of refugees," some fifteen thousand in number, passed into the town from the United States, in consequence of the ill usage with which the Loyalists were being treated, notwithstanding the recommendations of the Treaty of Peace.—Haliburton, Account of Nova Scotia, ii. 193-196.
