ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author focuses on a pamphlet which launches a savage attack on the preliminaries of peace with America and the European powers that the Earl of Shelburne, the Prime Minister in 1782-3, had just negotiated and planned to lay before both Houses of Parliament. He admits that Shelburne is in power at a time of internal discord and external calamity, but he still complains about the peace terms that Shelburne has negotiated with the countries with which Britain had been at war. Although Britain has experienced many disasters, the author claims that the war situation has just begun to improve and is more favourable than it had been after the British surrender at Yorktown in late 1781. Shelburne is criticized for making too many concessions to France and Spain, when they are exhausted by their war efforts; for betraying the American Loyalists; and for offering America over-generous terms with regard to the frontier between America and Canada.
