I told you in my last letters to you, of the 11th and 12th instant, that I had received information, whilst I was in the course of correspondence with the Ministry myself, on the subject of peace, that some part of the Ministry were transmitting some communications or inquiries upon that subject with Mr Adams, unknown to me. I had informed the Ministry from you, of the names of the four persons empowered to treat. I saw the Minister upon the occasion. (I should now call him the late Minister.) I took the liberty of giving him my opinion upon the matter itself. So far as it related personally to me, I expressed myself fully to him, that there was no occasion that such a step should have been taken unknown to me, for that I was very free to confess, that if they thought my partiality towards peace was so strong, that they could drive a better bargain through another channel, I could not have any right of exclusion upon them. I relate this to you, because I would wish to have you make a corresponding application to your own case. If you should think _that my strong desire for peace_, although _most laudable and virtuous in itself, should mislead me_, and that my being as you may suppose misled, may be of any prejudice to the cause committed to your trust, I desire by no means to embarrass your free conduct by any considerations of private or personal regard to myself. Having said thus much, I will now add, that I am not unambitious of the office of a peace maker; that I flatter myself the very page which I am now writing will bear full testimony from both sides, of the impartiality of my conduct. And I will add once more, what I often said and repeated to each side, viz. that no fallacy or deception, knowing, or suspecting it to be such, shall ever pass through my hands. Believe me, I sympathise most cordially and sincerely with you in every anxiety of yours for peace. I hope things are tending (although not without rubs) yet in the main, to that end--soon! as soon as the course of human life may be expected to operate on the great scale and course of national events, or rather in the creation and establishment of a new world. I am sometimes tempted to think myself in patient expectation the elder sage of the two; I say the elder, not the better. Yours, &c. D. HARTLEY. * * * * * T. DIGGES TO B. FRANKLIN. Amsterdam, March 22d, 1782. Sir,