These have been the arguments, which I have always driven and insisted upon with the greatest expectation of success, viz. _prudential_ arguments from the total impracticability of the war, responsibility, &c. I have been astonished beyond measure, that these arguments have not sooner had their effect. If I could give you an idea of the many conferences, which I have had upon the subject, I should tell you, that many times _Felix has trembled_. When reduced by the terror of responsibility either to renounce the American war, or to relinquish their places, they have chosen the latter; which is a most wretched and contemptible retribution either to their country or to mankind, for the desolation in which they have involved every nation, that they have ever been connected with. Peace they would not leave behind them. Their legacy to their country, and to mankind has been, _let darkness be the burier of the dead_! As to the proposal of a separate peace arising from a desire of _reconciliation_, it certainly was so on the part of the people of England, but on the part of the late Ministry, it probably arose from the hopes of suggesting to France ideas of some infidelity on the part of America towards them. If you should ask me, why I have _seemed_ to conspire with this, my answer is very plain. In the first place, if I could have prevailed with the late Ministry to have actually made an irrevocable offer, _on their own part_, of a separate peace to America, that very offer would in the same instant have become on their part also a consent to a general peace; because _they_ never had any wish to a separate contest with France, and America being out of the question, _they_ would have thought of nothing after that but a general peace. I never could bring them even to this. _They_ wished that _America_ should make the offer of a separate treaty, for obvious views. _My_ proposal was, that _they_ should offer irrevocable terms of peace to America. If they had meant what they pretended, and what the people of England did really desire, they would have adopted that proposition. Then the question would have come forward upon the fair and honorable construction of a treaty between France and America, _the essential and direct end_ of which was fully accomplished. When I speak of Great Britain offering irrevocable terms of peace to America, I mean such terms as would have effectually satisfied the provision of the treaty, viz. tacit independence.