I am in my own mind apprehensive, though I devoutly wish I may be mistaken, that the British Court in their answer to the articles, will adhere to their two preliminaries. It is very convenient for the English to hold up the idea of peace; it serves them to relieve their credit at certain times when it is in distress; it serves to disconcert the projects of the neutral powers to their disadvantage; it enables their friends in the United Provinces, to keep the Dutch nation in that state of division, sloth and inactivity, from which they derive so much plunder, with so much safety. But I cannot persuade myself, that the English will soberly think of peace, while they have any military force in the United States, and can preserve a gleam of hope of conquering or regaining America. While this hope remains, no depredations on their commerce, no loss of dominions in the East or West Indies, will induce them to make peace; because they think, that with America reunited to them they could easily regain whatever they may now lose. This opinion of theirs may be extravagant and enthusiastical, and they would not find it so easy to recover their losses; but they certainly entertain it, and while it remains, I fear they will not make peace. Yet it seems they have negotiated themselves into a delicate situation. If they should obstinately adhere to their two preliminaries, against the advice of the two Imperial Courts, this might seriously affect their reputation, if they have any, for moderation and for pacific dispositions, not only in those Courts, but in all the Courts and countries of Europe, and they would not easily answer it to their own subjects, who are weary of the war. Peace is so desirable an object, that humanity, as well as policy, demands of every nation at war a serious attention to every proposition, which seems to have a tendency to it, although there may be grounds to suspect, that the first proposer of it was not sincere. I think, that no power can judge the United States unreasonable in not agreeing to the _statu quo_, or the armistice. But perhaps I have not been sufficiently explicit upon another point. The proposal of a separate treaty between the British Minister and the Representative of the United States, seems to be a benevolent invention to avoid several difficulties; among others, first, that England may be allowed to save her national pride, to think and to say, that the independence of America was agreed to voluntarily, and was not dictated to her by France and Spain; secondly, to avoid the previous acknowledgment of American independence, and the previous ascertaining the title and character of the American Representative, which the Imperial Courts may think would be a partiality inconsistent with the character of mediators, and even of neutrals, especially as England has uniformly considered any such step as a hostility against them; though I know not upon what law of nations, or of reason.