the second of August last, General Carleton and Admiral Digby wrote to
General Washington in these words:

"The resolution of the House of Commons, of the 27th of February last,
has been placed in Your Excellency's hands, and intimations given at
the same time that further pacific measures were likely to follow. Since
which, until the present time, we have had no direct communications
with England; but a mail is now arrived, which brings us very important
information. We are acquainted, sir, by authority, that negotiations for
a general peace have already commenced at Paris, and that Mr. Grenville
is invested with full powers to treat with all the parties at war, and
is now at Paris in execution of his commission. And we are further, sir,
made acquainted, that His Majesty, in order to remove any obstacles to
this peace which he so ardently wishes to restore, has commanded his
ministers to direct Mr. Grenville, that the independence of the Thirteen
United Provinces, should be proposed by him in the first instance,
instead of making it a condition of a general treaty."

Now, taking your present measures into view, and comparing them with the
declaration in this letter, pray what is the word of your king, or his
ministers, or the Parliament, good for? Must we not look upon you as a
confederated body of faithless, treacherous men, whose assurances are
fraud, and their language deceit? What opinion can we possibly form of
you, but that you are a lost, abandoned, profligate nation, who sport
even with your own character, and are to be held by nothing but the
bayonet or the halter?

To say, after this, that the sun of Great Britain will be set whenever
she acknowledges the independence of America, when the not doing it is
the unqualified lie of government, can be no other than the language of
ridicule, the jargon of inconsistency. There were thousands in America
who predicted the delusion, and looked upon it as a trick of treachery,
to take us from our guard, and draw off our attention from the only
system of finance, by which we can be called, or deserve to be called,
a sovereign, independent people. The fraud, on your part, might be worth
attempting, but the sacrifice to obtain it is too high.

There are others who credited the assurance, because they thought it
impossible that men who had their characters to establish, would begin
with a lie. The prosecution of the war by the former ministry was savage
and horrid; since