CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATION IN ENGLAND--CHANGE OF POLICY FOR BOTH ENGLAND AND THE COLONIES--PEACE NEGOTIATIONS AT PARIS--THE CAUSE OF THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS.
During the adjournment of Parliament from the 24th to the 28th of March, the new Administration was formed, and announced in the Commons on the 28th, when the House adjourned over the Easter holidays, to give time for the re-election of such members as had accepted office. The King first sent for the Earl of Shelburne to form a new Administration, naming some members of it; but the Earl of Shelburne declined, as unable to form an Administration upon such conditions, and recommended the King to send for the Marquis of Rockingham. The King refused to see Rockingham face to face, but requested Shelburne to be the bearer of a message to him; but Shelburne only consented on the condition of "full power and full confidence." "Necessity," relates the King, "made me yield to the advice of Lord Shelburne." Before accepting the offer of First Lord of the Treasury, the Marquis of Rockingham, without neglecting some minor matters, stipulated that there should be no veto to the independence of America.[58] But it was nearly three months before an Act passed the Commons authorizing peace with America, and the acknowledgment of American Independence, and it was nearly a year before the treaty for that purpose was agreed upon.
In the meantime, "Immediately before the fall of Lord North's Ministry, in anticipation of that event, Dr. Franklin had written from Paris to Lord Shelburne with general expressions of his pacific views. On receiving that letter, Lord Shelburne, then Secretary of State, sent to Paris, as agent, Mr. Richard Oswald, a London merchant well versed in American affairs. Dr. Franklin readily conferred with Mr. Oswald, and put into his hands a paper drawn up by himself, suggesting that, in order to produce a thorough reconciliation, and to prevent any future quarrel on the North American continent, England should not only acknowledge the thirteen united States, but concede to them the Province of Canada. Such a project was not likely to find favour in the eyes of any British statesman. Mr. Oswald, however, undertook to return to England and lay it before his chief, Dr. Franklin, at his departure, expressing an earnest hope that all future communications to himself might pass through the same hands.