d the
instant of that reconciliation, which he wishes so much to hasten, and
would furnish the leaders of the rebels with the means of fostering
and strengthening their rebellion, and oppressing the well-affected by
the weight of their usurped authority; he would put it in the power of
his enemies to prolong the troubles, if he made the return of peace in
America to depend on the success of a negotiation with a belligerent
power, a negotiation which it would always be in their power to render
fruitless.

The favorable intentions of the King towards his rebellious subjects,
and his desire to make them experience the effects of his clemency,
and restore to them the happiness, which they enjoyed before their
rebellion, are generally known, but whatever may be the arrangements,
which his Majesty will make to restore and ensure the quiet of his
Colonies, and link the happiness of his American subjects to that of
the metropolis, they will be in their nature as all things are, which
are merely national, arrangements of internal policy, and as such,
they cannot properly be the object of the mediation or guarantee of
any foreign power. When the King availed himself of the dispositions
of the two Imperial Courts and employed their mediation, his Majesty
gave it plainly to be understood, that he aimed at the restoration of
peace between the belligerent powers, to which alone it appeared to
him that a mediation could be applied. Persisting invariably in the
same sentiments, the King wishes that the mediation, at the same time
that it confines itself to this particular object, may comprehend it
in its full extent, and that the war between Great Britain and the
Republic of Holland may be included in it.

If the negotiation is opened, agreeably to these principles, and
directed solely to this salutary end, if the other belligerent powers
bring to it the same conciliatory spirit which his Majesty will show,
the generous care of the mediating powers will meet with a success the
most complete, and the most conformable to their views.

* * * * *

No. 4.

_Reply of the Mediators to the Belligerent Powers._

Translation.

The Courts of Versailles and Madrid having transmitted to the two
Imperial Courts their respective answers[4] to the Articles proposed
to serve as a basis to the negotiation, which had been communicated to
them, as