Note 10 — Chapter XXVII

The conciliatory acts of the British Parliament and the letter of the Commissioners were referred by the Congress to a Committee of three—all known to be opposed to any reconciliation with England. This Committee made, the next day after its appointment, a report which was adopted by Congress, that the British acts were merely intended to operate upon the hopes and fears of the American people, and to produce divisions among them; "that those who made any partial convention or agreement with the Commissioners of Great Britain would be regarded as enemies; and that the United States could hold no conference with such Commissioners until the British Government first withdrew its fleets and armies, or acknowledged the independence of the United States."

"This rejection of terms which they not long before would have cordially welcomed, was, no doubt, caused by the confident expectation they then had of the support and alliance of France; and accordingly the news of that alliance soon after reached them, and diffused a general joy throughout the land." (Tucker's History of the United States, Vol. I., Chap. iii., pp. 221, 222.)