ers unless, as a preliminary, they should
either withdraw the fleets and armies, or else, in express terms,
acknowledge the independence of the United States. In vain did the
Commissioners address the President of the Congress, and entreat some
consideration of their terms. (For the terms, see page 11.) To none of
these terms, so tempting heretofore, would the Congress hearken; and
after their first letter, they decided in a summary manner that no
further reply should be returned."--_Ib._, pp. 374, 375.]

[Footnote 12: "Finding it impossible to proceed with their negotiations,
the Commissioners prepared to re-embark for England. First, however,
they issued a manifesto, or proclamation, to the American people,
appealing to them against the decisions of the Congress, and offering to
the colonies at large, or singly, a general or separate peace. This
proclamation was in most parts both ably and temperately argued. But
there was one passage liable to just exceptions. The Commissioners
observed, that hitherto the hopes of a reunion had checked the extremes
of war. Henceforth the contest would be changed. If the British colonies
were to become an accession to France, the law of self-preservation must
direct Great Britain to render the accession of as little avail as
possible to her enemy. Mr. Fox and others in the House of Commons
inveighed with great plausibility against this passage, us threatening a
war of savage desolation. Others again, as friends of Lord Carlisle and
Mr. Eden (afterwards Lord Auckland), asserted that no such meaning was
implied. The error, whatever it might be, lay with the Commissioners,
and in no degree with the Government at home; for Lord North denied, in
the most express terms, that his Ministers had intended to give the
least encouragement to the introduction of any new kind of war in North
America." (Debate in the House of Commons, Dec. 4, 1778.)

Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VI., Chap. lviii., pp. 376,
377.]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

COMPLETE FAILURE OF THE FRENCH FLEET AND ARMY, UNDER COUNT D'ESTAING, TO
ASSIST THE CONGRESS.

The leaders of Congress were disappointed in the high expectations which
they had entertained from their unnatural alliance with France. Count
D'Estaing left France with a much more powerful fleet than Lord Howe
commanded in America, besides bringing an army of several thousand
soldiers. He had expected to surprise and capture the British ships in
the