XXXVIII ty-three millions and a half to the already superabund- CHAPTER ant issue. A new impulse was thus given to the depreciation, which Congress and the states strove in vain to 1778 arrest. This depreciation had already produced a serious defalcation in the pay of the army, and many officers, seeing better prospects elsewhere, had thrown up their commissions. Washington was very unwilling thus to lose the assistance of tried officers, who had gone through an apprenticeship to the service; and, by earnest and repeated recommendations, he prevailed at length upon Congress, May. but not without very great difficulty, to promise half pay for seven years to all officers who should serve to the end of the war. To all soldiers who served to the end of the war, a gratuity of eighty dollars was promised. Washington had proposed for the officers half pay for life; the term of seven years was adopted as a compromise. Congress had a great horror of permanent military and half-pay establishments-a sentiment in which they sympathized with the country. Before any military movements had occurred beyond mere foraging expeditions, draughts of Lord North's conciliatory bills arrived in America, and were very busily April 15. circulated by the disaffected. Fearful of the effects which this new offer might produce, Congress ordered the bills to be published in the newspapers, and, along with them, the report of a committee of their body, criticising the proposed compromise with much keenness. This re port concluded with a resolution, unanimously adopted, denouncing as open and avowed enemies all who should attempt a separate treaty, and declaring that no conference should be held with any commissioners till the British armies were first withdrawn, or the independence of the United States acknowledged. CHAPTER Whatever might have been the effect, under other cir XXXVIII. cumstances, of Lord North's plan of conciliation, it was 1778. wholly counteracted by the arrival shortly after, and beMay. fore accounts had reached America of the actual passage of the bills, of two treaties with France, brought out by a French frigate dispatched for that express purpose. Lord North no sooner had brought into Parliament his bills for conciliation, than Vergennes signified to the American commissioners his readiness to treat. The capture of Burgoyne's army, and, still more, the spirit exhibited, notwithstanding the loss of Philadelphia, in Washington's attack upon the British army at Germantown, had satisfied the French court that the Americans were strong and in earnest. The proposition of the French minister was eagerly met. Two treaties were Jan. 30. speedily signed: one, of friendship and commerce; the other, of defensive alliance, in case Great Britain should declare war against France. The great object of these treaties purported to be the mercantile and political independence of the United States. No peace was to be made till that object was attained, and then only by mutual consent. The contracting parties guaranteed to each other their respective possessions in America. The right was reserved for Spain to become a party to the alliance. The treaty of friendship and commerce having been. March 13. communicated, three days after the approval of the con. ciliation bills, to the British court, that communication. was answered by the recall of the British embassador from Paris, amounting, in substance, to a declaration of war. Ratified by Congress as soon as received, both treaties were hailed every where throughout the United States. with the greatest enthusiasm; and that hereditary nation May 5 al hatred of France, which hitherto had pervaded America XXXVIIL was now suddenly changed to respect, gratitude, and af- CHAPTER fection, though not without some remnants, and presently some occasional outbursts of the old feeling. These treaties, meanwhile, had given rise to very warm debates in the British Parliament. It seemed useless to the members of Lord Rockingham's party, who composed the bulk of the opposition, to stand out any longer against the independence of America. To protract the war, with France as a party to it, would involve an immense expenditure, while it could only serve to aggravate the quarrel, to embitter the Americans, and to bring them under the influence of France. Was it not wiser to make peace at once, and, abandoning all attempts at political authority, to secure as far as might be, and before they became further engaged in any new connections, the commerce and good-will of the late colonists? 1778 Propositions to that effect were brought forward in both houses of Parliament. In the upper house they encountered the warm opposition of Lord Chatham, who fell April 7 in a fainting fit, from which he never recovered, while protesting against the dismemberment of the empire. In the House of Commons the same ground was taken by Lord Shelburne, who presently became the acknowledged head of the parliamentary supporters of the late Earl of Chatham. The wise lesson of yielding in time is no less difficult for statesmen and for nations than for private individuals. To teach the British Parliament and people to yield to what was inevitable, more millions must be spent, more blood must flow! Having returned to England on his parole, and receiving from the ministry but a cool reception, Burgoyne appeared in his seat in the House of Commons, and denounced the inefficient conduct of the war. Sir William Howe, complaining that his demands for men and sup XXXVIII. CHAPTER plies had not been met with sufficient promptitude, had requested to be recalled, and the command in chief of the 1778. British army was given to Sir Henry Clinton. As the spring opened, strong foraging parties of the British army issued from Philadelphia. An expedition May 7. up the Delaware captured or burned a considerable number of vessels, including the unfinished Continental frigates which had been conveyed for safety to Trenton. Washington was still encamped at Valley Forge with an effective force of hardly twelve thousand men; nor did it seem possible, with all the efforts made to fill up the ranks, that the Continental army, including the troops at Wilmington, West Point, and Ticonderoga, and a brigade lately sent into New Jersey, could be carried beyond twenty thousand. Now that the Delaware was liable to be blocked up by a French fleet, Philadelphia could no longer be safely held by the British. An intention to evacuate it began to be rumored. To gain intelligence as to this matter, as well as to restrict the enemy's foraging parties, Washington sent La Fayette, to whom the command of a di vision had lately been given, with a strong detachment of the best troops, to occupy Barren Hill, between Valley Forge and Philadelphia, some ten miles in advance of the camp. He had not long been there when Clinton sent a much stronger force to cut him off; but the young May 20. general escaped by a seasonable and handsome retreat. The three civil commissioners appointed under Lord North's act were the Earl of Carlisle, William Eden, a brother of the late governor of Maryland, known after ward as Lord Auckland, and Governor Johnstone, who had been from the commencement a conspicuous opponent in Parliament to the whole American policy of ministers. A passport to visit Congress having been refused XXXVIII. by Washington to Adam Ferguson, the commissioners' CHAPTER secretary, they presently sent to that body a copy of their commission, and an address, in which they proposed a sus- 1778. pension of hostilities. They suggested in it, as the basis June 13 of a final settlement, an extension of the privileges of trade hitherto allowed to the colonies; an understanding that no military force should be kept up in any colony without the consent of its Assembly; an arrangement for sustaining the Continental bills of credit, and their ultimate discharge; a representation of the colonies in the British Parliament, and of the British government in the colonial Assemblies; and such an organization of the colonial administrations as to yield almost every thing short of total independence. Such an offer, two years before, would have been eagerly grasped at. But times had changed. Jealous, however, of the influence which the commissioners might exercise, Congress resolved to have as little to do with them as possible. A very brief answer was given to their June 17 address in the terms of the resolution above mentioned, refusing to treat unless the independence of the states were first acknowledged or the British troops withdrawn. The commissioners made a long and argumentative re- July i joinder; but of that Congress took no notice. The preparations for evacuating Philadelphia had meanwhile been completed. The baggage and stores, with about three thousand non-combatants who adhered to the British, were sent round to New York by water; and the army, about twelve thousand strong, crossing the June 18 Delaware, took up its line of march through the Jerseys. As soon as the evacuation was known, Washington, with his whole force, marched in pursuit. The weather was hot and rainy; the British were a good deal encumbered with baggage and provision wagons, and the Ameri |