C. The Peace of 1763.—The events in Europe which led to the downfall of Pitt and to the negotiations for peace are best portrayed among American historians in Parkman[1563] and Bancroft.[1564]
The leading English historians (Stanhope, etc.) can be supplemented by the Bedford Correspondence, vol. iii. Various claims and concessions, made respectively by the English and French governments, are printed from the official records in Mills’ Boundaries of Ontario (App., p. 209, etc.). See also the Mémoire historique sur la négociation de la France et de l’Angleterre depuis le 26 Mars, 1761, jusqu’au 20 septembre de la même année, avec les pièces justificatives, Paris, 1761.[1565]
As soon as Quebec had surrendered there grew a party in England who put Canada as a light weight in the scales, in comparison with Guadaloupe, in balancing the territorial claims to be settled in defining the terms of a peace. The controversy which followed produced numerous pamphlets, some of which may be mentioned.[1566]
The surrender of Canada was insisted upon in 1760 in a Letter addressed to two great men on the prospect of peace, and on the terms necessary to be insisted upon in the negotiation (London); and the arguments were largely sustained in William Burke’s Remarks on the Letter addressed to two great men (London, 1760), both of which pamphlets passed to later editions.[1567]
Franklin, then in London, complimented the writers of these tracts on the unusual “decency and politeness” which they exhibited amid the party rancor of the time. This was in a voluminous tract, which he then issued, called Interest of Great Britain considered with regard to her colonies and the acquisition of Canada and Guadaloupe, London, 1760.[1568] In this he repelled the intimation that there was any disposition on the part of the Americans to combine to throw off their allegiance to the crown, though such views were not wholly unrife in England or in the colonies.[1569] He also advocated, in a way that Burke called “the ablest, the most ingenious, the most dexterous on that side,” for the retention of Canada, insisting that peace in North America, if not in Europe, could only be made secure by British occupancy of that region.[1570]
The preliminaries of peace having been agreed upon in November, 1762, and laid before Parliament, the discussion was revived.[1571] The ratification, however, came in due course,[1572] and the royal proclamation was made Oct. 7, 1763.[1573]
D. The General Contemporary Sources Of the War, 1754-1760.—During the war and immediately following it, there were a number of English reviews of its progress and estimates of its effects, which either reflect the current opinions or give contemporary record of its events.
Such are the following:—
John Mitchell’s Contest in America between Great Britain and France, with its consequences and importance, London, 1757.[1574] It was published as by “an impartial hand.”