barbarities," to be illustrated by thirty-five prints by good
artists of Paris, "each expressing one or more of the different horrid
facts, ... in order to impress the minds of children and posterity with
a deep sense of your bloody and insatiable malice and wickedness." He
would not do this, yet was sorely provoked toward it. "Every kindness I
hear of done by an Englishman to an American prisoner makes me resolve
not to proceed in the work, hoping a reconciliation may yet take place.
But every fresh instance of your devilism weakens that resolution, and
makes me abominate the thought of a reunion with such a people."

In point of fact the idea of an actual reunion seems never from the very
outset to have had any real foothold in his mind. In 1779 he said: "We
have long since settled all the account in our own minds. We know the
worst you can do to us, if you have your wish, is to confiscate our
estates and take our lives, to rob and murder us; and this ... we are
ready to hazard rather than come again under your detested
government."[77] This sentiment steadily gained strength as the struggle
advanced. Whenever he talked about terms of peace he took a tone so high
as must have seemed altogether ridiculous to English statesmen.
Independence, he said, was established; no words need be wasted about
that. Then he audaciously suggested that it would be good policy for
England "to act nobly and generously; ... to cede all that remains in
North America, and thus conciliate and strengthen a young power, which
she wishes to have a future and serviceable friend." She would do well
to "throw in" Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas, and "call it ... an
indemnification for the burning of the towns."

[Note 77: See also a strong statement in letter to Hartley of
October 14, 1777; _Works_, vii. 106.]

Englishmen constantly warned him of the blunder which the colonies would
commit, should they "throw themselves into the arms" of France, and they
assured him that the alliance was the one "great stumbling-block in the
way of making peace." But he had ever the reply, after the fashion of
Scripture: By their fruits ye shall know them. France was as liberal of
friendship and good services as England was of tyranny and cruelties.
This was enough to satisfy Franklin; he saw no Judas in the constant
and generous de Vergennes, and could recognize no inducement to drop the
substance France for the shadow England.[78] To his mind it seemed to