Again large issues of paper money were made, which, causing still further depreciation, led to the greatest perplexity and embarrassment. The reduced pay of the officers, insufficient for their simplest needs, must have compelled many able and long-tried officers to throw up their commissions, had not Washington induced congress to promise half-pay for seven years to all officers who served to the end of the war, and a gratuity to the common soldiers. About the middle of April, at the very moment when all was in active operation to carry on the war with renewed vigour, the first tidings of the conciliatory bills reached New York, and ex-governor Tryon and the Tory party used their utmost endeavours to diffuse them throughout the colonies. To counteract the influence of these measures, congress ordered them to be immediately published in every newspaper of the States, accompanied by the printed resolutions of their body on the subject. “There was a time,” said Governor Turnbull, “when this step from our acknowledged parent would have been accepted with joy and gratitude, but that time is irrevocably past. No peace can be concluded now with Great Britain on any other terms than the most absolute, perfect independence. Nevertheless,” concluded he, “the union by a lasting and honourable peace is the ardent wish of every American. The British nation will then find us as affectionate and valuable friends as we now are determined and fatal enemies, and will derive from that friendship more solid and real advantage than the most sanguine can expect from conquest.” On the 22nd of April, congress officially declared, that any man or body of men, who should presume to make any separate or partial agreement with the commission under the crown of Great Britain, should be considered as enemies of the United States; that the United States would enter into no treaty with Great Britain until her fleets and armies were withdrawn, or the independence of America acknowledged. Scarcely were these resolutions published, than, as if to give them value with the public, Simon Deane arrived at Yorktown, where congress was then sitting, in a royal frigate from Paris bringing with him for ratification two treaties of alliance and commerce between France and the United States; the last of which was signed the 30th of January, and the former on the 6th of February. On the 4th of May, they were ratified by congress, and the utmost joy and exultation prevailed throughout the United States. There was an end now to the hatred of France in America; her independence was acknowledged by that nation, and congress extolled “the extraordinary equity, generosity and unparalleled honour of the French monarch.”