The American Commissioners, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, declared in reply, that “the restoration of such of the estates of the refugees as have been confiscated is impracticable, because they were confiscated by laws of particular States, and in many instances have passed by legal titles through several hands.” As to the demand of compensation for these persons, the Commissioners said: “We forbear enumerating our reasons for thinking it ill-founded.”[45] In the course of the conference, and by way of reply or set-off, gross instances were adduced of outrages by the British troops in “the carrying off of goods from Boston, Philadelphia, and the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, &c., and the burning of the towns.” Franklin mentioned “the case of Philadelphia, and the carrying off of effects there, even his own library.” Laurens added “the plunders in Carolina of negroes, plate, &c.”[46] In a letter from Franklin to the British Commissioner, under date of November 26, 1782, the pretension of the loyalists was finally repelled in the plainest words. “You may well remember, that, in the beginning of our conferences, before the other Commissioners arrived, on your mentioning to me a retribution for the loyalists whose estates had been forfeited, … I gave it as my opinion and advice, honestly and cordially, that, if a reconciliation was intended, no mention should be made in our negotiations of those people; for, they having done infinite mischief to our properties, by wantonly burning and destroying farm-houses, villages, and towns, if compensation for their losses were insisted on, we should certainly exhibit against it an account of all the ravages they had committed, which would necessarily recall to view scenes of barbarity that must inflame, instead of conciliating, and tend to perpetuate an enmity that we all profess a desire of extinguishing.… “Your ministers require that we should receive again into our bosom those who have been our bitterest enemies, and restore their properties who have destroyed ours,--and this while the wounds they have given us are still bleeding. It is many years since your nation expelled the Stuarts and their adherents, and confiscated their estates. Much of your resentment against them may by this time be abated; yet, if we should propose it, and insist on it, as an article of our treaty with you, that that family should be recalled and the forfeited estates of its friends restored, would you think us serious in our professions of earnestly desiring peace? “I must repeat my opinion, that it is best for you to drop all mention of the refugees.”[47]