George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[393] become minister of war, and soon annexed to these

chap. XVII.} 1761. March

departments the care of the marine. ‘It is certain,’ said Grimaldi, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, ‘they ardently wish for a negotiation for peace here.’ Kaunitz, of Austria, who might well believe that Silesia was about to be recovered for his sovereign, interposed objections. ‘We have these three years,’ answered Choiseul, ‘been sacrificing our interests in America to serve the queen of Hungary; we can do it no longer.’ ‘France will not be bound by the will of her allies.’¹Spain saw with alarm the disposition for peace; she had demanded the evacuation of the British posts in the Bay of Honduras, and on the shore of Campeachy; and in the pride of maritime ascendency, England, violating treaties and its own recognition of its obligations, required that Spain should first come into stipulations for the continuance of the trade which had occasioned the intrusive settlements. Unwilling to be left to negotiate alone, Grimaldi, urging the utmost secrecy, ‘began working to see if he could make some protecting alliance with France.’ ‘You have waited,’ he was answered, ‘till we are destroyed, and you are consequently of no use.’ And on the twenty-fifth day of March, within five days of Bute's accession to the cabinet, on occasion of proposing a general congress at Augsburg, for the pacification of the Continent, Choiseul offered to negotiate separately with England. Pitt assented. Little

April.

did the two great statesmen foresee that their attempts at a treaty of peace would only generate permanent passions and alliances, which would leave