t we could have the most
distant idea of a separate peace. If such distrust really exists, it
would, in my opinion, dictate to them, to let Great Britain
acknowledge our independence at once, rather than make it the subject
of subsequent negotiation. When satisfied on that point, we can with
more advantage contend for those our allies have at heart. Whereas by
withholding it, and making it the price of concessions on the part of
France, which she may not choose to make, an opportunity would be
afforded, to embroil and incline us to listen to separate proposals.
Upon this principle, France seems to have acted in all the answers,
which she has hitherto given, as well to the direct proposals of
Great Britain as to those made by the imperial Courts. When Mr
Grenville proposed to treat of the independence of the United States
with his Most Christian Majesty, an opportunity was afforded to take
the lead in the negotiation, and to suspend that part of it; yet we
find the reply of the Court of Versailles led to a direct negotiation
between Great Britain and us, and ended in the offer of unconditional
independence. The reply of the Court of France to that of London,
communicated to Mr Grenville on the 21st of June, speaks the same
language.

From these and the following facts you will, when you have compared
them with those within your own knowledge, draw your inferences with
more judgment than I can pretend to do without those you possess.

Before your letters were received, the Chevalier de la Luzerne showed
me a letter from the Count de Vergennes of the 14th of August, in
which he speaks of Mr Grenville's commission, and the ground it gave
him to hope, that negotiations would open with an express and
unconditional acknowledgment of independence. He mentions the change
in the British administration; their assurances, that it should
occasion no alteration in the plan of their negotiation, and
concludes, by expressing his surprise at the alteration, which
afterwards took place in this essential article in the propositions
offered by Mr Fitzherbert, and infers from thence, that Lord Shelburne
had no other design than to divide and deceive. In a letter of the 7th
of September, he mentions Mr Oswald's commission, your objections to
it, and his doubts of the manner in which these objections will be
received. "If," says he, "Mr Oswald is right in his conjecture, that
they will be favorably received and removed, then everything _is