To Benjamin Franklin from William Carmichael: Extract, 18 July 1780
From William Carmichael: Extract
Reprinted from William Temple Franklin, The Private Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., F.R.S., &c … (2nd ed.; 2 vols., London, 1817), II, 461.
Madrid, July 18, 1780.
I thought, until the receipt of your letter (of the 17th June)9 that Mr. Jay had sent you Sir John Dalrymple’s Memorial, and other papers while I was at Aranjuez. He sends them, however, by this courier, and I think you will be amused in reading Sir John’s Reveries.1
Mr. Cumberland,2 a former Secretary of Lord Germaine, succeeds Sir John. His residence gives no uneasiness to the Count de Montmorin,3 which with the assurances that we receive from the Count de Florida Blanca, ought to remove our apprehensions.
9. XXXII, 540–3.
1. Jay’s letter of the preceding day is above. For Sir John Dalrymple’s abortive peace mission see XXXII, 290–1n, 409n. His “reveries” refers to the memoir titled “Anecdote Historique,” which included his peace proposals: Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, III, 727–31.
2. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811), secretary of the Board of Trade, had been sent by the British government to forward any Spanish peace proposals. He arrived at the royal palace of Aranjuez on June 18: DNB; Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Hussey-Cumberland Mission and American Independence: an Essay in the Diplomacy of the American Revolution (Princeton, 1931), pp. 44–60.
3. On July 18 Ambassador Montmorin reported to Vergennes that Spanish Chief Minister Floridablanca was not displeased by the idea of giving the French a little disquietude so they would be more amenable to the joint campaign plans he favored. AAE.