Note 2 — A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ABBE RAYNAL
Reading edition
Extract from, "A short Review of the present Reign," in England. Page 45, in the New Annual Register for the year 1780.
"THE Commissioners, who, in consequence of Lord North's conciliatory bills, went over to America, to propose terms of peace to the colonies, were wholly unsuccessful. The concessions which formerly would have been received with the utmost gratitude, were rejected with disdain. Now was the time of American pride and haughtiness. It is probable, however, that it was not pride and haughtiness alone that dictated the Resolutions of Congress, but a distrust of the sincerity of the offers of Britain, a determination not to give up their independence, and above all, the engagements into which I had entered by their late treaty with France."