The morning after the meeting of the King’s servants, Sir Edward called on me early, and, in a long conversation, we discussed every means that could be devised to answer the present purpose; and at length agreed upon one expedient, of which I made successful use in my visit to the French Ambassador, on whom I called directly, and began by stating to him the object of my visit, namely, to endeavour, by a frank and open conversation with him, to hit off some means of preventing a breach between our two countries; and, in the course of our interview, I desired him, particularly, not to allow himself to be led away with false notions of the disposition of our country from the specimen he had observed of the disposition to riot and disorder, and to give me credit, when I assured him that all these would vanish on the breaking out of a war, especially on ground so popular as that of the honour of the flag, to carry which on with spirit every Englishman would part with his last shilling. He replied, that peace was the object of his wish, as much as I had professed it to be mine. Besides, recapitulating all that had passed with Lord Weymouth, he would impart this to me, as Duke of Grafton, “that nothing could urge Louis the Fifteenth into another war, except where his honour was concerned, and that he personally felt the present affront most sensibly;” he added, “that M. de Choiseul’s interest would suffer greatly by a war, and that he would show his disposition to avoid it, if such did present itself.” The Ambassador proposed various schemes for reconciliation; but none of them came within my own notions of what might have been admissible by the nation. Those which I first mentioned met with no better reception from M. de Châtelet; and, after a long parley of two hours, we were near parting, when I thought I might lay before him, as the only means, the very proposal I had settled with Sir Edward Hawke. It was this, that the answer to the French King’s complaint, should be, to say that his Majesty could not do so great an injustice to a lieutenant in his service, as to punish him without hearing his account of this unfortunate transaction; and that, the officer having now sailed to the East Indies, such an account could not be obtained till the return of the lieutenant. I added, to M. de Châtelet, that his return would not be expected for three years, when the affair might be supposed to have slipped into oblivion. The Ambassador, after a little consideration, told me that he liked the proposal, and would do his endeavours to make it palatable to the Duc de Choiseul.