'Whilst in the full career of victory, they pulled off the mask, and avowed their intended despotism. But having lavished in vain the blood and treasure of their subjects in pursuit of this execrable purpose, they now endeavor to ensnare us with the insidious offers of reconciliation. They intend to lull you with fallacious hopes of peace, until they can assemble new armies to prosecute their nefarious designs. If this is not the case, why do they strain every nerve to levy men throughout their islands? why do they meanly court every little tyrant of Europe to sell them his unhappy slaves? why do they continue to imbitter the minds of the savages against you? Surely this is not the way to conciliate the affections of America. Be not, therefore, deceived. You have still to expect one severe conflict. Your foreign alliances, though they secure your independence, cannot secure your country from desolation, your habitations from plunder, your wives from insult or violation, nor your children from butchery. Foiled in their principal design, you must expect to feel the rage of disappointed ambition. Arise then! to your tents! and gird you for battle! It is time to turn the headlong current of vengeance upon the head of the destroyer. They have filled up the measure of their abominations, and like ripe fruit must soon drop from the tree. Although much is done, yet much remains to do. Expect not peace, whilst any corner of America is in possession of your foes. You inust drive them away from this land of promise, a land flowing indeed with milk and honey. Your brethren at the extremities of the continent, already implore your friendship and protection. It is your duty to grant their request. They hunger and thirst after liberty. Be it yours to dispense to them the heavenly gift, since a kind Providence has placed it in your power."

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The Congress also published those articles of the treaty of amity and commerce which related to the reciprocal intercourse between the two nations, to the end that the inhabitants of the United States might govern themselves conformably to the same. They exhorted them to consider the French as their brethren, and to behave towards them with the friendship and attention due to the subjects of a great prince, who with the highest magnanimity and wisdom had treated with the United States on terms of perfect equality and mutual advantage, thereby rendering himself the protector of the rights of mankind.

Great were the rejoicings in all parts of the United States; the name of Lewis XVI. was in all mouths. Every where he was proclaimed the protector of liberty, the defender of America, the savior of the country. These joyful tidings were announced with great solemnity to the army, which still occupied the camp of Valley Forge; the soldiers were under arms, and all the corps formed in order of battle.

Meanwhile, the three pacificatory commissioners, Carlisle, Eden, and Johnstone had arrived in the waters of the Delaware at the beginning of June; they repaired to Philadelphia the ninth. General Clinton notified their arrival to Washington, praying him to send a passport to doctor Ferguson, secretary of the commissioners, that he might without danger deliver their despatches to the Congress. Washington refused the passport, and his refusal obtained the special approbation of the government. The commissioners then decided to forward their letters by the ordinary post. The Congress received them in their sitting of the thirteenth, with an express from Washington. They were read to certain words in the letter directed to his excellency Henry Laurens, the president and others, the members of Congress.' No sooner were they heard, than a violent clamor arose; many members exclaimed that the reading ought to be interrupted on account of the offensive language against his most christian majesty.

The words were these, 'We cannot but remark the insidious interposition of a power, which has from the first settlement of the colonies been actuated with enmity to us both; and notwithstanding the pretended date or present form of the French offers to North America, it is notorious that they have only been made, because it was believed that Great Britain had conceived the design of an amicable arrangement, and with a view to prevent reconciliation, and prolong this destructive war.' After animated debates, the further consideration of the subject was adjourned to the next sitting. The question was agitated with equal vehemence the following days. Finally, the Congress having demonstrated by the warmth of this discussion the respect they bore to their august ally, reflected on the other hand, that it was more prudent to answer than to keep silence. It was easy to lay before the people such motives as were likely to dissuade them from accepting the proposals of England, whereas a refusal to notice them might occasion discontents prejudicial to the state. They determined accordingly to read the despatches of the commissioners. They consisted in the letter addressed to the president of Congress, a copy of their commission, and three acts of parliament. The commissioners offered in their letter more than would have been required in the origin of the quarrel, to appease the minds of the colonists and reestablish tranquillity; but less than was necessary at present to obtain peace. They endeavored to persuade the Americans that the conditions of the arrangement were not only favorable, but also perfectly sure, and of such a nature that the two parties would know for the future upon what footing they were to live together; that their friendship would thus be established upon solid bases, as it should be, in order to be durable. They declared themselves ready to consent to an immediate cessation of hostilities by sea and land; to restore a free intercourse, and to renew the

common benefits of naturalisation throughout the several parts of the empire; to extend every freedom to trade that the respective interests of both parties could require; to agree that no military force should be kept up in the different states of North America, without the consent of the General Congress, or of the particular assemblies; to concur in such measures as would be requisite to discharge the debts of America, and to raise the credit and the value of the paper circulation; to perpetuate the common union by a reciprocal deputation of agents from the different states, who should have the privilege of a seat and voice in the parliament of Great Britain; or if sent from Britain, in that case, to have a seat and voice in the assembly of the different states to which they might be deputed respectively; in order to attend to the several interests of those by whom they were deputed; to establish the right and power of the respective legislatures in each particular state, of settling its revenue and its civil and military establishment, and of exercising a perfect freedom of legislation and internal government, so that the British states throughout North America, acting with those of Europe in peace and war, under one common sovereign, might have the irrevocable enjoyment of every privilege that was short of a total separation of interest, or consistent with that union of force on which the security of British religion and liberty depended.

Finally, the commissioners expressed their desire to open conferences with Congress, or with some of its members, either at New York, at Philadelphia, or at Yorktown, or in such other place as it might please the Congress to appoint.

Thus, to terminate a war, already pushed to a great length, those who in its origin would hear of nothing short of the absolute reduction of America, abated all the rigor of their conditions.

Meanwhile, the Congress took into serious consideration the state of affairs. The debates that ensued upon this subject, were drawn into length; not that any individual thought of renouncing independence, but all took an interest in the form of the answer to be given to the commissioners. The discussion was continued until the seventeenth of June. On that day the Congress answered with as much conciseness as dignity; they already felt how greatly their position was meliorated by the success of their arms and the alliance of France. Their reply purported, that the acts of the British parliament, the very commission of the agents, and their letters to Congress supposed the people of the United States to be subjects of the crown of Great Britain, and were founded on the idea of dependence, which was utterly inadmissible; that, nevertheless, the Americans were inclined to peace, notwithstanding the unjust claims from which the war had originated, and the savage manner in which it had been conducted. That Congress would therefore be ready to enter upon the consideration of a treaty of peace and commerce,

not inconsistent with treaties already subsisting, when the king of Great Britain should demonstrate a sincere disposition for that purpose; of which no other proof could be admitted but that of an explicit acknowledgment of the independence of the United States, or the withdrawing of his fleets and armies.

Thus, the Americans, steady in their resolutions, chose rather to trust to their own fortune, which they had already proved, and to the hope they placed in that of France, than to link themselves anew to the tottering destiny of England; abandoning all idea of peace, war became the sole object of their solicitude. Such was the issue of the attempts, to effect an accommodation; and thus were extinguished the hopes which the negotiation had given birth to in England. By not consenting to concessions until the time for them was passed, the English justified the refusal of the Americans. It cannot be affirmed that these overtures on the part of the first, were only an artifice to divide the second among themselves, to detach them from France, and to have them afterwards at their discretion; but it is certain that after so many rancorous animosities, so many sanguinary battles, after the innumerable excesses of rapine, cruelty and lust, the Americans could not be blamed for suspecting the British ministers of a design to insnare them.

The wound was incurable, and friendship could not be restored. This was a truth of universal evidence; the seeming inclined to believe the contrary, was sufficient to inspire apprehensions of treachery, and the extreme of distrust in all flattering promises. Whoever shall reflect attentively upon the long series of events which we have related up to this time, will perceive that the Americans were always constant in their resolution, the English always versatile, uncertain, and wavering. Hence it is not at all surprising that those found new friends, and that these not only lost theirs, but also made enemies of them at the very moment when they could do them the least harm, and might receive the most from them. Vigorous resolutions prevent danger; half measures invite and aggravate it.

But the chiefs of the American revolution were not without apprehension that the insidious caresses, the new concessions of England, and the secret intrigues of the commissioners might act powerfully upon the minds of such citizens as were weak or impatient for repose. The Congress, however, was not disposed to give any other answer except that which has been recounted above. They excited therefore several writers to justify their resolutions and to defend the cause of America. This course appeared to them the more proper, inasmuch as the English commissioners, having lost all hope of succeeding with the Congress, had resorted to the expedient of disseminating in the country a multitude of writings, by which they endeavored to persuade the people that the obstinacy of Congress would hurry America into an abyss, by alienating her from her old

friends, and giving her up a prey to an inveterate enemy. This step of the commissioners furnished the patriots with a new argument to put the people on their guard against the artifices and intrigues of the agents of England. Among the writers of this epoch, deserving of particular mention, is Drayton, one of the deputies of South Carolina, and a man of no common erudition. He endeavored to demonstrate in the public papers, that the United States having already treated with France, as free states, and in order to maintain their independence, they could not now negotiate with the British commissioners upon the basis of submission, without renouncing that faith and ingenuousness which ought to preside over all their transactions, without exposing the American people to be accounted faithless and infamous, and consequently to lose for ever all hope of foreign succours; while on the other hand they would find themselves placed without resource in the power of those who had given them heretofore such fatal proofs of their perfidy and cruelty. 'Besides,' he added, the conventions that we might make with the commissioners would not be definitive, they would need the ratification of the king, of the ministers, and of the parliament; and what assurance have we that they would have it? But let it be supposed, can we be assured that a future parliament will not annul all these treaties? Let us not forget, that we have to do with an enemy as faithless and fraudulent as barbarous. How is it possible not to suspect a snare, when we hear the commissioners offer us propositions which exceed their powers, and contradict even the acts of parliament? Thus the patriots repulsed the offers, the promises, and the arguments of the British commissioners. Finding no accessible point, the latter were at length convinced that all hope of conciliation must be relinquished. If they could still have remained under any illusion upon this point, it must soon have been dissipated by the evacuation which their generals made, at the same instant, of the city of Philadelphia, the acquisition of which had been the fruit of so much blood, and of two arduous campaigns. The ministers feared, what actually happened, that a French fleet might suddenly enter the Delaware, and place the British army, which occupied Philadelphia, in extreme jeopardy. Their design was, besides, to carry the war into the southern provinces, and to send a part of the troops to defend their islands of the West Indies against the attacks of the new enemy. The diminution that must result from it in the army of the continent, induced them to send orders to Clinton, by the commissioner Eden, to evacuate Philadelphia without delay, and to fall back upon New York. This measure, dictated by prudence, and even by necessity, was interpreted by the Americans as a symptom of terror; and it consequently must have had the most prejudicial influence upon the success of the negotiations. What need have we, they said, to enter into an accommodation with the Eng