whose letter to me
contained some very promising expressions. Assure him that, in
spite of all that has happened, he and I are still of the same
country.

St. James's, Tuesday night,

May 21st, 1782.

MR. SHERIDAN TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

St. James's, May 26th, 1782.

My dear Grenville,

Charles not being well, I write to you at his desire, that you
may not be surprized at having no private letter from him with
the despatch which Mr. Oswald brings you. There is not room, I
believe, for much communication of any very private nature on
the subject of your instructions and situation, as his public
letter, you will see, is very sincerely to the purpose. If
anything in it admits of modification, or is not to be very
literally taken, I should conceive it to be the recommendation
of explicitness with Oswald; on which subject I own I have
suggested doubts; and Charles wishes you to have a caution for
your own discretion to make use of.

I perceive uniformly (from our intercepted information) that all
these _city_ negotiators--Mr. Wentworths, Bourdeaux,
&c.--insinuate themselves into these sort of affairs merely for
private advantages, and make their trust principally subservient
to stock-jobbing views, on which subject there appears to be a
surprising communication with Paris. Mr. Oswald's officiousness
in bringing over your despatch and other things I have been told
since by those who know him, lead me to form this kind of
opinion of him; but you will judge where this will apply to any
confidence that should be placed in him.

Surely, whatever the preliminaries of a treaty for peace with
France may be, it would be our interest, if we could, to drop
even mentioning the Americans in them; at least the seeming to
grant anything to them as at the requisition of France. France
now denies our ceding Independence to America to be anything
given to them, and declines to allow anything for it. In my
opinion it would be wiser in them to insist ostentatiously (and
even to make a point of allowing something for it) on the
Independence of America being as the first article of their
treating; and this would for ever furnish them with a claim on
the friendship and confidence of the Americans after the peace.
But since they do not do this, surely it would not be bad