The last act of the commissioners was the publication of a violent manifesto, addressed not only to congress and the assemblies, but to the people at large, intended to separate them from their rulers, by charging upon them all the miseries and the consequences of the war, declaring that the contest changed its nature when America estranged herself from the mother-country and mortgaged herself and her resources to the enemies of Great Britain; the clergy were reminded that the French were papists, and the lovers of peace were appealed to against ambitious men who were subjecting their country to unnecessary warfare. Forty days were allowed for submission, after which, if the offer were rejected, the country was threatened with desolation as the future object of the war. The circulation of this manifesto under flags of truce was prohibited by congress, but it was published in all the newspapers with a counter-manifesto and with comments from the pens of some of their most able men. As the commissioners had disparaged France in this document, the Marquis La Fayette, as the representative of his country, sent a challenge to the Earl of Carlisle, which that nobleman declined to accept, on the plea that he was responsible only to his sovereign for his public acts. Shortly after this time the Marquis La Fayette returned to France, in which country he believed that he could serve the rising interest of America more effectually than in her armies. At the end of the forty days, having flung their firebrand into the country, the commissioners departed, much to the relief of congress, but not before their threatened warfare of desolation had commenced its work.