will, therefore, be ready to enter upon the consideration of a treaty of peace and commerce not inconsistent with treaties already subsisting, when the King of Great Britain shall demonstrate a sincere disposition for that purpose. The only solid proof of this disposition will be an explicit acknowledgment of these States or the withdrawing his fleets and armies." The British commissioners remained several months in the country and made many and various attempts to accomplish the objects of their mission, but without success. They were compelled to return to England baffled and disappointed. Thus the Americans, as an eloquent historian suggests, steady in their resolutions, chose rather to trust to their own fortune, which they had already proved, and to the hope they placed in that of France, than to link themselves anew to the tottering destiny of England; abandoning all idea of peace, war became the sole object of their solicitude. Such was the issue of the attempts to effect an accommodation and thus were extinguished the hopes which the negotiation had given birth to in England. It was the misfortune of England to be governed by ministers who were never willing to do justice until they were compelled by main force. Their present concessions, as on all previous occasions, came too late. We have had frequent occasion to notice the embarrassments and mortifications to which Washington was subjected by the interference of Congress in those executive matters which should have been left entirely under his own control. This was particularly injurious to the public service in their conduct with respect to the treatment and exchange of prisoners. Much correspondence on this subject took place between Washington and Howe during the winter when the army was at Valley Forge, and whenever the generals were on the eve of arranging an exchange Congress would interfere and prevent it. Washington had been compelled, by his sense of justice and humanity, to censure Howe for his treatment of American prisoners. An order hastily given out by the Board of War exposed Washington himself, without any fault of his own, to a similar censure from Howe. The circumstances, as related by Marshall, were these: