"As soon as you communicate your propositions, they will be examined, and I will submit to you my observations on them, in order that we may be able to agree on both sides. "I have the honor to be, &c. THE COUNT D'ARANDA." On the same day, viz. the 10th of September, a copy of a translation of a letter from M. Marbois to the Count de Vergennes, against our sharing in the fishery, was put into my hands. Copies of it were transmitted to you, enclosed with my letter of the 18th of September, of which a duplicate was also forwarded. I also learned from good authority, that on the morning of M. Rayneval's departure the Count d'Aranda had, contrary to his usual practice, gone with _post horses_ to Versailles, and was two or three hours in conference with the Count de Vergennes and M. Rayneval before the latter set out. All these facts taken together led me to conjecture, that M. Rayneval was sent to England for the following purposes. 1st. To let Lord Shelburne know that the demands of America, to be treated by Britain as independent previous to a treaty, were not approved or countenanced by this Court, and that the offer of Britain to make that acknowledgment in an article of the proposed treaty was in the Count's opinion sufficient. 2dly. To sound Lord Shelburne on the subject of the fishery, and to discover whether Britain would agree to divide it with France to the exclusion of all others. 3dly. To impress Lord Shelburne with the determination of Spain to possess the exclusive navigation of the Gulf of Mexico, and of their desire to keep us from the Mississippi; and also, to hint the propriety of such a line as on the one hand would satisfy Spain, and on the other, leave to Britain all the country north of the Ohio. 4thly. To make such other verbal overtures to Lord Shelburne, as it might not be advisable to reduce to writing, and to judge from the general tenor of his lordship's answers and conversation, whether it was probable that a general peace, on terms agreeable to France, could be effected, in order that if that was not the case an immediate stop might be put to the negotiation.