On being informed of these proceedings, congress, without hesitation, adopted the course which the government of an independent nation is bound to pursue, when attempts are made by a foreign power to open negotiations with unauthorized individuals.  They declared the measure “to be contrary to the law of nations, and utterly subversive of that confidence which could alone maintain those means which had been invented to alleviate the horrors of war; and, therefore, that the persons employed to distribute such papers, were not entitled to the protection of a flag.”  They recommended it to the executive departments in the respective states, “to secure, in close custody, every person who, under the sanction of a flag, or otherwise, was found employed in circulating those manifestoes.”  At the same time, to show that these measures were not taken for the purpose of concealment, they directed a publication of the manifesto in the American papers.  Care, however, was taken to accompany it with comments made by individuals, calculated to counteract its effect.  A vessel containing a cargo of these papers being wrecked on the coast, the officers and crew were made prisoners; and the requisition of Admiral Gambier for their release, in consequence of the privilege afforded by his flag, was answered by a declaration that they had forfeited that privilege by being charged with seditious papers.

[Sidenote:  October 30.]

Not long after the publication of this paper, a counter-manifesto was issued by congress, in which, after touching on subjects which might influence the public mind, they “solemnly declare and proclaim, that if their enemies presume to execute their threats, or persist in their present course of barbarity, they will take such exemplary vengeance as shall deter others from a like conduct.”

Thus ended this fruitless attempt to restore a connexion which had been wantonly broken, the reinstatement of which had become impracticable.  With the war, and with independence, a course of opinion had prevailed in America, which not only opposed great obstacles to a reunion of the two countries under one common sovereign, but, by substituting discordant materials in the place of the cement which formerly bound them together, rendered such an event undesirable even to the British themselves.  The time was arrived when the true interest of that nation required the relinquishment of an expensive war, the object of which was unattainable, and which, if attained, could not be long preserved; and the establishment of those amicable relations which reciprocal interests produce between independent states, capable of being serviceable to each other by a fair and equal interchange of good offices.

This opinion, however, was not yet embraced by the cabinet of London; and great exertions were still to be made for the reannexation of the American states to the British empire.  Even the opposition was not united against a continuance of the war for the object now proposed; and the Earl of Chatham, who had endeavoured first to prevent the conflict, and afterwards to produce conciliation, closed his splendid life in unavailing efforts to prevent that dismemberment which had become inevitable.[12]