OF THE NEGOTIATION FOR PEACE WITH GREAT BRITAIN
FROM MARCH 21ST TO JULY 1ST, 1782.
Passy May 9th, 1782.
As since the change of the Ministry of England, some serious professions have been made of their disposition to peace, and of their readiness to enter into a general treaty for that purpose; and as the concerns and claims of five nations are to be discussed in that treaty, which must therefore be interesting to the present age, and to posterity, I am inclined to keep a journal of the proceedings as far as they come to my knowledge, and to make it more complete, I will first endeavor to recollect what has already past. Great affairs sometimes take their rise from small circumstances. My good friend and neighbor Madame Brillon, being at Nice all last winter for her health, with her very amiable family, wrote to me that she had met with some English gentry there, whose acquaintance proved agreeable; among them she named Lord Cholmondely, who she said had promised to call in his return to England, and drink tea with us at Passy. He left Nice sooner than she supposed, and came to Paris long before her. On the 21st of March, I received the following note.
"Lord Cholmondely's compliments to Dr Franklin; he sets out for London tomorrow evening, and should be glad to see him for five minutes before he went. Lord Cholmondely will call upon him at any time in the morning he shall please to appoint.
Thursday evening. Hotel de Chartres."
I wrote for answer, that I should be at home all the next morning, and glad to see his Lordship if he did me the honor of calling on me. He came accordingly. I had before no personal knowledge of this nobleman. We talked of our friends whom he left at Nice, then of affairs in England, and the late resolutions of the Commons on Mr Conway's motion. He told me that he knew Lord Shelburne had a great regard for me, that he was sure his Lordship would be pleased to hear from me, and that if I would write a line he should have a pleasure in carrying it. On which I wrote the following.
TO LORD SHELBURNE.
Passy, March 22d, 1782.