your care and kindness, we make you our bow, and entreat you to relinquish the trust.' He could conceive all this; but while the Crown did remain a part of our Constitution, and those negotiations were trusted to the prerogative, he could have no conception of their calling for the secrets of any negotiation which the King might be carrying on for the purpose of peace. The noble earls thought there was no danger in disclosing the treaty in question. The best answer to this assertion was, that those Peers who did know the subject matter of the treaty, were of opinion that there was danger in its exposure, and they therefore refused it.[1]
The discussions with Rayneval had meanwhile continued. Two alternative schemes were at length agreed upon by the Cabinet and submitted to the King, who conveyed his decision upon them to Shelburne, in the following letter:—
"Lord Grantham's note is come, stating the two propositions:—
"I should prefer the first proposition, if I could see any equivalent to Martinico in the West Indies, that we could offer France. To give her further footing in the East Indies would be big with mischief; the two Floridas alone occur to me; and let France and Spain by mutual exchanges accommodate themselves. As to the second, I would propose, if Gibraltar is kept, that Spain should have the two Floridas or Minorca, but I should wish if possible to get rid of Gibraltar, and to have as much possession in the West Indies as possible; for it has been
