3.  The proprietors had absolutely despaired of being paid, at any time, any proportion, of their demand, until the change of that ministry.  The merchants were checked and discountenanced; they had often been told, by some in authority, of the cheap rate at which these Canada bills had been procured; yet the author can talk of the composition of them as a necessity induced by the change in administration.  They found themselves indeed, before that change, under a necessity of hinting somewhat of bringing the matter into Parliament; but they were soon silenced, and put in mind of the fate which the Newfoundland business had there met with.  Nothing struck them more than the strong contrast between the spirit, and method of proceeding, of the two administrations.

4.  The Earl of Halifax never did, nor could, refuse to sign this convention; because this convention, as it stands, never was before him.[97]

The author’s last charge on that ministry, with regard to foreign affairs, is the Russian treaty of commerce, which the author thinks fit to assert, was concluded “on terms the Earl of Buckinghamshire had refused to accept of, and which had been deemed by former ministers disadvantageous to the nation, and by the merchants unsafe and unprofitable."[98]

Both the assertions in this paragraph are equally groundless.  The treaty then concluded by Sir George Macartney was not on the terms which the Earl of Buckinghamshire had refused.  The Earl of Buckinghamshire never did refuse terms, because the business never came to the point of refusal, or acceptance; all that he did was, to receive the Russian project for a treaty of commerce, and to transmit it to England.  This was in November, 1764; and he left Petersburg the January following, before he could even receive an answer from his own court.  The conclusion of the treaty fell to his successor.  Whoever will be at the trouble to compare it with the treaty of 1734, will, I believe, confess, that, if the former ministers could have obtained such terms, they were criminal in not accepting them.

But the merchants “deemed them unsafe and unprofitable.”  What merchants?  As no treaty ever was more maturely considered, so the opinion of the Russia merchants in London was all along taken; and all the instructions sent over were in exact conformity to that opinion.  Our minister there made no step without having previously consulted our merchants resident in Petersburg, who, before the signing of the treaty, gave the most full and unanimous testimony in its favor.  In their address to our minister at that court, among other things they say, “It may afford some additional satisfaction to your Excellency, to receive a public acknowledgment of the entire and unreserved approbation of every article in this treaty, from us who are so immediately and so nearly concerned in its consequences.”  This was signed by the consul-general, and every British merchant in Petersburg.