he American
Commissioners, or the cowardice, ignorance, and recklessness of the
British diplomatists.

The result of these negotiations was, that the adherents to Great
Britain during the civil war were deprived of the amnesty and
restoration of property upon any ground of right, as had been granted at
the termination of civil strife by all civilized nations--to the
restoration of what had been taken from them during the war--and turned
over as suppliant culprits to the several States by whose laws their
property had been confiscated, and themselves declared guilty of
treason, and condemned to the death of traitors. Dr. Franklin, in the
beginning of his negotiations, had proposed to give all that now
constitutes British North America to the United States, and thus leave
to the British Loyalists not an inch of ground on which to place their
feet; but all that was now left to them, as far as America was
concerned, was to prostrate themselves as suppliants before the
Legislatures of the several States, each of which was for the most part
a seething cauldron of passion and resentment against them.[67]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 58: The new Cabinet was composed as follows: The Marquis of
Rockingham, First Commissioner of the Treasury; the Earl of Shelburne
and Mr. Fox, Secretaries of State; Lord Camden, President of the
Council; Duke of Grafton, Privy Seal; Lord John Cavendish, Chancellor of
the Exchequer; Admiral Keppel, raised to be a Viscount, First
Commissioner of the Admiralty; General Conway, Commander of the Forces;
Duke of Richmond, Master General of the Ordnance. Lord Thurlow was
continued in the office of Lord High Chancellor, and Mr. Dunning raised
to the peerage under the title of Lord Ashburton, as Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster. Mr. Burke was not made a member of the Cabinet, but
was appointed to the lucrative office of Paymaster of the Forces, and
was further gratified by the appointment of his son to a small office.

About six months after the formation of the new Cabinet the Marquis of
Rockingham died, and the Earl of Shelburne was appointed to succeed him,
when the Duke of Richmond, Mr. Fox, and Lord John Cavendish seceded from
the Cabinet, and were succeeded by Mr. Thomas Townsend and Lord Graham
as Secretaries of State, while the place of Lord John Cavendish, as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was more than filled by Mr. Pitt.]

[Footnote 59: Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VII., Chap
lxv