Thomas GRENVILLE’S union in the double negotiation with Mr. OSWALD (instructed by SHELBURNE, it will be remembered, as GRENVILLE was by FOX) proved to be very distasteful to him. From the beginning it boded ill to the success of the mission. As early as the 4th of June, 1782, we find Mr. GRENVILLE writing to FOX [Sidenote: THE MISSION TO PARIS, 1782–3.] thus:—‘I entreat you earnestly to see the impossibility of my assisting you under this contrariety.... I cannot fight a daily battle with Mr. OSWALD and his Secretary.[44] [Sidenote: T. Grenville to Fox; 4th June, 1782.] It would be neither for the advantage of the business, for your interest, or for your credit or mine; and, even if it was, _I_ could not do it.’ The then existing arrangements of the Secretaryship of State gave the control of a negotiation with _France_ to one Secretary, and of a negotiation with _America_ to the other. The reader has but to call to mind the well-known political relationship between FOX and SHELBURNE in 1782, to gain a fully sufficient key to the consequent diplomatic relationship between OSWALD and Thomas GRENVILLE, when thus engaged in carrying on, abreast, a double mission at the Court of Paris. [Sidenote: Comp. also same to same, June 16. (_Court and Cabinets_ of Geo. III, pp. 36–51.)] To add to the obvious embroilment, OSWALD had shortly before received from Benjamin FRANKLIN a suggestion that Britain should ‘spontaneously’ cede Canada, in order to enable his astute countrymen at home the better to compensate both the plundered Royalists and those among the victorious opponents of those Royalists who had, from time to time, sustained any damage at the hands of the British armies.