On receiving these resolutions, General Burgoyne addressed a letter to congress, containing papers, on which he founded a defence of his conduct, and insisted on the embarkation of his army, as stipulated in the convention; but the committee, to whom these papers were referred, reported their opinion, after the most attentive consideration of them, to be, "that nothing therein contained was sufficient to induce congress to recede from their resolves of the 8th of January last, respecting the convention of Saratoga." This application was accompanied by another letter from General Burgoyne, to be delivered if the army should still be detained, in which, in consideration of the state of his health, he solicited permission to return to England. This request was readily granted. The impression made on the British nation by the capitulation of Burgoyne, notwithstanding the persevering temper of the king, at length made its way into the cabinet, and produced resolutions in favour of pacific measures. {1778} {February.} After the rejection of repeated motions made by the opposition members tending to the abandonment of the American war, Lord North gave notice, in the House of Commons, that he had digested a plan of reconciliation which he designed shortly to lay before the house. [Sidenote: Plan of reconciliation with America agreed to in Parliament.] In conformity with this notice, he moved for leave to bring in, "first, A bill for removing all doubts and apprehensions concerning taxation by the Parliament of Great Britain in any of the colonies and plantations of North America. "Second. A bill to enable his Majesty to appoint commissioners with sufficient powers to treat, consult, and agree upon the means of quieting the disorders now subsisting in certain of the colonies of North America." The first contained a declaration that Parliament will impose no tax or duty whatever payable within any of the colonies of North America, except only such duties as it may be expedient to impose for the purposes of commerce, the net produce of which should always be paid and applied to and for the use of the colonies in which the same shall be respectively levied, in like manner as other duties collected under the authority of their respective legislatures are ordinarily paid and applied. The second authorized the appointment of commissioners by the crown, with power to treat either with the existing governments, or with individuals, in America; provided that no stipulations which might be entered into should have any effect until approved in Parliament, other than is afterward mentioned. It is then enacted, that the commissioners may have power "to proclaim a cessation of hostilities in any of the colonies, to suspend the operation of the non-intercourse law; and farther, to suspend, during the continuance of the act, so much of all or any of the acts of Parliament which have passed since the 10th day of February, 1763, as relates to the colonies.