You may remember, that from the very beginning of our negotiations for settling a peace between Great Britain and America, I insisted that you should positively stipulate for a restoration of the property of all those persons, under the denomination of loyalists or refugees, who have taken part with Great Britain in the present war; or if the property had been resold and passed into such variety of hands, as to render the restoration impracticable, (which you asserted to be the case in many instances) you should stipulate for a compensation or indemnification to those persons, adequate to their losses. To these propositions you said you could not accede. Mr Strachey, since his arrival at Paris, has most strenuously joined me in insisting upon the said restitution, compensation, or indemnification, and in laying before you every argument in favor of those demands, founded upon national honor, and upon the true principles of justice. These demands you must have understood to extend, not only to all persons of the above mentioned description, who have fled to Europe, but likewise to all those who may be now in any parts of North America, dwelling under the protection of his Majesty's arms or otherwise.
We have also insisted upon a mutual stipulation for a general amnesty on both sides, comprehending thereby an enlargement of all persons, who on account of offences, committed or supposed to be committed, since the commencement of hostilities, may be now in confinement; and for an immediate repossession of their properties, and peaceable enjoyment thereof, under the government of the United States. To this you have not hitherto given a particular or direct answer.
It is, however, incumbent on me, as Commissioner of the King of Great Britain, to repeat those several demands; and without going over those arguments upon paper, (which we have so often urged in conversation,) to press your immediate attention to these subjects, and to urge you to enter into proper stipulations for the restitution, compensation, and amnesty above mentioned, before we proceed further in this negotiation.
I have the honor to be, &c.
RICHARD OSWALD.
ARTICLES TAKEN TO ENGLAND BY MR STRACHEY.[12]
Articles agreed upon by and between Richard Oswald, Commissioner of his Britannic Majesty, for treating of peace with the Commissioners of the United States of America, on behalf of his said Majesty on the one part; and John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, three of the Commissioners of the said States, for treating of peace with the Commissioner of his said Majesty, on their behalf, on the other part, to be inserted in, and to constitute the treaty of peace, proposed to be concluded between the Crown of Great Britain and the said United States; but which treaty is not to be concluded until his Britannic Majesty shall have agreed to the terms of a peace between France and Britain, proposed or accepted of by his Most Christian Majesty, and shall be ready to conclude with him such treaty accordingly; it being the duty and intention of the United States not to desert their ally, but faithfully and in all things to abide by and fulfil their engagements with his Most Christian Majesty.
Whereas reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience are found by experience to form the only permanent foundation of peace and friendship between States, it is agreed to form the articles of the proposed treaty on such principles of liberal equality and reciprocity as that partial advantages (those seeds of discord) being excluded, such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries may be established as to promise and secure to both perpetual peace and harmony.