t to. In this idea it was that Lord Fitzwilliam's
appointment occurred to me, not to prevent a clandestine
negotiation, but to unite a separated one; always imagining that
you knew of, but did not resist, the intended commission to Mr.
Oswald, and therefore hinting the expediency of superseding it,
by giving to another person an appointment of such rank and
magnitude as should include a power which it seems neither for
the public interest, nor for yours and your friends' interests,
to leave separate and distinct.

To return, however, to the point of confidence: upon this last
subject there is none; and you are certainly at full liberty to
proclaim at Charing Cross that Lord Shelburne told Mr. Oswald he
supposed he would not object to a commission if it should be
necessary; and that since his last return to Paris, Mr. Oswald
has told me he found it very much Franklin's wish likewise. If I
may repeat, therefore, in a few words, what I have tried to
express to you in a good many, it is that, as to Franklin's
first intention of a private and confidential communication with
me, I hold myself so engaged in secrecy to him, that I think it
would be a breach of confidence in me to have that intention at
all spoken of. As to the Canada paper, I leave it, with the
comment I have made upon it, altogether to your discretion; and
as to the proposed commission, you are certainly at full liberty
to say of it what you please. I have it not in my power to give
you any additional proofs of sinister management in this
business. I seldom see Oswald, though upon good terms with him;
and have seen Franklin, since Oswald's coming, but once, when he
was as silent as ever, notwithstanding my reminding him of his
promise; so that I cannot help thinking that business altogether
irretrievable. But neither do I know what you will gain by
forcing Oswald's return; indeed I am inclined to think it might
be much more prudent to save appearances by leaving him here,
till you shall have completed your purpose of receiving the
propositions you wish or the refusal you wish from Versailles.
Perhaps, politically speaking, you may not think it wise to make
the conduct, or rather misconduct, of a foreign negotiation the
ground of a domestic rupture, which may betray too much weakness
and disunion; but this is too d