To smooth the way for obtaining this desirable end, as well as to comply with my duty, it becomes necessary for me on this occasion to mention to your Excellency the affair of our three prizes, which, having during the war entered Bergen as a neutral and friendly port, where they might repair the damages they had suffered, and procure provisions, were, by an order of your predecessor in the office you so honorably fill, violently seized and delivered to our enemies. I am inclined to think it was a hasty act, procured by the importunities and misrepresentations of the British Minister, and that your government could not, on reflection, approve of it. But the injury was done, and I flatter myself your Excellency will think with me, that it ought to be repaired. The means and manner I beg leave to recommend to your consideration, and am, with great respect, Sir, &c.
B. FRANKLIN.
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
Passy, April 16th, 1783.
Sir,
You complain sometimes of not hearing from us. It is now near three months since any of us have heard from America. I think our last letters came with General de Rochambeau. There is now a project under consideration for establishing monthly packet boats between France and New York, which I hope will be carried into execution; our correspondence then may be more regular and frequent.
I send herewith another copy of the treaty concluded with Sweden. I hope, however, that you will have received the former, and that the ratification is forwarded. The King, as the Ambassador informs me, is now employed in examining the duties payable in his ports, with a view of lowering them in favor of America, and thereby encouraging and facilitating our mutual commerce.
M. de Walterstorff, Chamberlain of the King of Denmark, formerly Chief Justice of the Danish West India Islands, was last year at Paris, where I had some acquaintance with him, and he is now returned hither. The newspapers have mentioned him as intended to be sent Minister from his Court to Congress, but he tells me no such appointment has yet been made. He assures me, however, that the King has a strong desire to have a treaty of friendship and commerce with the United States, and he has communicated to me a letter, which he received from M. Rosencrone, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, expressing that disposition. I enclose a copy of the letter, and if Congress shall approve of entering into such a treaty with the King of Denmark, of which I told M. de Walterstorff I made no doubt, they will send to me, or whom else they shall think proper, the necessary instructions and powers for that purpose. In the meantime, to keep the business in train, I have sent to that Minister for his consideration, a translation of the plan, mutatis mutandis, which I received from Congress for a treaty with Sweden, accompanied by a letter, of which likewise I enclose a copy. I think it would be well to make it one of the instructions to whoever is commissioned for the treaty, that he previously procure satisfaction for the prizes mentioned in my letter.
The definitive treaties have met with great delays, partly by the tardiness of the Dutch, but principally from the distractions in the Court of England, where for six or seven weeks there was properly no Ministry, nor any business effected. They have at last settled a Ministry, but of such a composition as does not promise to be lasting. The papers will inform you who they are. It is now said, that Mr Oswald, who signed the preliminaries, is not to return here, but that Mr David Hartley comes in his stead to settle the definitive. A Congress is also talked of, and that some use is to be made therein of the mediation formerly proposed of the Imperial Courts. Mr Hartley is an old friend of mine, and a strong lover of peace, so that I hope we shall not have much difficult discussion with him; but I could have been content to have finished with Mr Oswald, whom we always found very reasonable.