xxvm CONCILIATION TOO LATE 355 



On February 19, 1778, measures of conciliation were 

 laid before the Commons. The British cabinet was at 

 last wholly convinced of their necessity. North, unhappy 

 leader in a failing Cause, said that he had been so convinced 

 all along ; consent was wrung from an unwilling king, 

 and the new bills were carried through a perplexed 

 parliament. The Boston Act was repealed, and the 

 tea duty, and no tax was to be imposed for revenue in 

 any of the colonies. Five commissioners were to go out 

 with unlimited powers, to treat with all Assemblies or 

 persons, even with the Congress, to stop hostilities, to 

 grant pardons, to suspend all laws, and in particular 

 every challenged act since 1763, to restore to all the 

 colonies their former constitutions and allow them to 

 nominate governors ; but no regulations were to be 

 finally binding until confirmed by parliament. The 

 chief points for which Fothergill and Barclay had earnestly 

 contended three years earlier were thus conceded. 

 Everything in fact was yielded to the Americans save 

 their independence, and even this was not to be renounced 

 until the final ratification of the treaty. 1 The aim of the 

 ministry in these measures was sincere ; there was no 

 real ground for the assertions freely made in parliament, 

 and believed by Franklin, that their true purpose was 

 to divide and weaken the colonials. 



Alas for the tragedy of things ! The day of visitation 

 was over ; it was now too late. A treaty with France 

 based on independence had been signed. A British 

 army was in captivity ; besides, the hands of the ministry, 

 which still included Sandwich, Wedderburn and Hills- 

 borough, were too soiled with the blood of war to offer 

 boons : timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. The Congress 

 rejected the terms, nor did an appeal from the Congress 

 to the States fare better. War had to go on. 



Little can here be said of its further progress : how 

 the British responded to the emergency ; how the public 

 voice called for Chatham but the king refused to see 

 him ; how the contest assumed a harsher spirit ; barbari- 



1 Statutes at Large, xxxii. 3, 18 Geo. III. c. xi.-xiii. ; Hansard, xix. 762. 



