On October 20, 1789, Home Secretary William Wyndham Grenville wrote a private and secret letter to Carleton, informing him of the plans of the king's counsellors to modify Canada's constitution. The letter leaves little doubt as to the influence that American independence and the taking of the Bastille (which had just occurred in July) had on the decision. In the first paragraph, Grenville writes: "I am persuaded that it is a point of true Policy to make these Concessions at a time when they may be received as matter of favour, and when it is in Our own power to regulate and direct the manner of applying them, rather than to wait 'till they shall be extorted from Us by a necessity which shall neither leave Us any discretion in the form, nor any merit in the substance of what we give."