NECKER (Jacques). Signed letter (4 pp. in-folio) with autogr - Lot 82

NECKER (Jacques). Signed letter (4 pp. in-folio) with autograph apostille (3 1/4 lines), addressed TO THE ENGLISH PRIME MINISTER, FREDERICK NORTH. Paris, December 1, 1780. EXTRAORDINARY OFFICIAL LETTER INTENDING TO CONVINCE THE ENGLISH PRIME MINISTER TO ENVISAGE A TREATY IN MILITARY ACTION IN THE UNITED STATES, written after the English defeat at Saratoga (1777), after the landing of Count de Rochambeau's French expeditionary corps (1780), but before the decisive English defeat at Yorktown (1781). The cost of war in North America was very high for France, England and the United States alike, and Jacques Necker, as Comptroller General of Finances, and Lord North, as former Chancellor of the Exchequer, were well aware of this. Moreover, Jacques Necker was imbued with the ideas of the Enlightenment and had little sympathy for military solutions, while Lord North, for his part, had shown in 1776 that he could be sympathetic to the American colonists, but had not had time to implement a conciliatory policy before war broke out. "A person at present absent from Paris, and whom Mr Walpole [the politician and writer Horace Walpole, who made friends with Madame Du Deffand] may have named to you, My Lord, having engaged him in an unacknowledged step, M. Walpole found himself in a situation of great difficulty. Walpole found himself in the position of opening up to me, and having on this occasion become acquainted with some fragments of a letter he received from you, I was so struck by the noble and frank manner in which you manifested in a general way your love for peace, that this reading animated in me an idea which will at least show you, My Lord, the perfect esteem I have for your character, and will not, I hope, give you a bad opinion of mine. YOU DESIRE PEACE, I DESIRE IT ALSO; thus brought together by a sentiment so just, and by the uprightness of our intentions, why should we not attempt what the ministers of politics will one day try? We wouldn't rob them of the honors of a treaty, but we could prepare the first steps, or at least find out if the time has come. I have always believed that moderation, common sense and loyalty are the foundation of negotiations, and shorten them infinitely. You have, I know, My Lord, the confidence of the King of England, and how could you not have it after the long and sustained services you have rendered him throughout the course of your honest and brilliant administration? I cannot boast of having the same rights to that of the King, but I believe I can assure you that reasonable overtures would succeed just as well in my hands as in those of any other; but HER MAJESTY MUST HOLD, AS WELL AS THE KING OF ENGLAND, TO AN HONORABLE PEACE, and this is where, I feel, the difficulties begin. You would surely have more insight and facility than I to indicate the means that can reconcile the claims of the belligerent parties, but this desire to see things through, this art of standing back to judge without compromising oneself, in short all this political science repugnant to my character, and persuaded, moreover, that as long as it is M. Necker alone who speaks to Myr. Necker alone who speaks to My Lord North, my words will not be counted, and that I am entrusting them, moreover, to a faithful man, I will say frankly from the outset that in reflecting apart from myself on this matter, I would believe that a longer or shorter period of time, during which the parties in America would be able to retain independently what they have, would be a reasonable first impression. The exchanges to be made, moreover, between France and England seem easy to me, as does the forgetting of that useless and irritating commissioner at Dunkirk [a clause in the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had imposed on France the presence of an English commissioner at Dunkirk, but he was expelled in 1778 at the time of the Franco-American alliance and the breakdown of Franco-English diplomatic relations]. As for Spain, to whom the King owes loyalty and attachment, I dare not venture to speak of its conveniences and claims, but it is possible, and almost probable, that they are known to you. If, on the other hand, what you think, and what you are willing to show me, allows me to concern myself with this interesting matter, I will support your peaceful views with care and love, and always with the greatest return of frankness. I MUST