XVIII. 1778. BOOK been offered; so that the whole amount arose to the precise and full complement of one hundred. The only circumstance really important and interesting in this singular manifesto is the discovery that the mediation of Spain had been offered and accepted by Great Britain and France soon after the commencement of hostilities, and that a negociation between these two courts had been actually carried on for the space of eight months. On the 14th of September, immediately subsequent to the arrival of the count d'Almadovar in London, lord Weymouth declared to his excellency, that the king of England most sincerely desired to terminate the present war by the mediation of his catholic majesty. In consequence of which, the king of Spain, after much discussion, proposed a general truce for a term of years, in order to allow time for the final accommodation of differences. In his ultimatum of the 3d of April, 1778, he offered the city of Madrid for the holding of a general congress for this purpose, to which the colonies should be admitted to send commissioners, and in the mean time to be treated as an independent power; and that a general disarming should take place within one month in Europe, and four months in America; his catholic majesty offering at the same time his guarantee of the definitive treaty. XVIII. The manifesto states, "That the court of Lon-BOOK don objected to recognizing the independency of America during the continuance of the truce; 1778. and it forcibly urges, as a thing very extraordinary, and even ridiculous, that the minister, lord North, had, notwithstanding this objection, proposed in the English house of commons that the congress should be treated with as the plenipotentiaries of independent states on the very proviso suggested by Spain, that this concession should not be understood to preclude the subse quent possible relinquishment of that independency. The convention of Saratoga, the cartel settled for the exchange of prisoners, the nomination of commissioners to supplicate the Americans for peace at their own doors, are, it is asserted, real and unequivocal acknowledgments of the independency of America. The English nation itself is appealed to by his catholic majesty: ' whether these acts are more consonant with the dignity of the British crown, than would be the granting, at the intercession of his catho lic majesty, a suspension of hostilities for the adjustment of differences, and the treating them in this interval as independent states. Nevertheless the English court positively refused, as the manifesto proceeds to affirm, its assent to the propositions contained in this ultimatum; declaring, moreover, that France should not interfere in XVIIL. 1778. BOOK the arrangement of the interests of those she affects to call her allies; and, in fine, the English court had the effrontery to say, that the drift of Spain was to form, from the pretensions of the colonies to independence, one common cause with them and with France. On the contrary, his catholic majesty declares, that these last proposals were not even communicated to France before they were transmitted to the court of London; so that the haughty expressions of the English ministry amount merely to this conclusion, 'that, in spite of the overture made by themselves, they prefer war to peace, or a treaty under the mediation of the catholic king, whom they provokingly insulted, treating him as partial, inconsistent, and leagued with the enemies of Great Britain; notwithstanding which his catholic majesty did not issue orders for reprisals, but in consequence of the actual commencement of hostilities on the part of Great Britain." Upon the whole it is evident, from the explicit and curious detail of the whole negociation given in this manifesto, clothed as it is in the stately language of Castilian pride tinctured with absurdity, that Spain acted in this business with generosity, openness, and honor. It was undoubtedly determined by both branches of the house of Bourbon, to establish the permanent independency of America; but this SPAIN at XVIII. least wished to effect without involving herself Book in a war with England; and the expedient suggested by his catholic majesty was certainly the 1779. wisest and best which in present circumstances could be adopted: but the pride of the English court was not yet sufficiently humbled to assent to the emancipation of America, though the idea of subjugation became every day more palpably chimerical and extravagant. During the recess of parliament, the earl of Stormont, late ambassador at Paris, was made secretary of state, in the room of the earl of Suffolk deceased. Viscount Weymouth a second time resigned the seals of the southern department, which were transferred to the earl of Hillsborough; and earl Bathurst, late chancellor of Great Britain, was nominated president of the council, in the room of earl Gower. The great seal had been consigned, in the course of the preceding year, to the attorney-general Thurlow, created baron Thurlow; a man endowed by nature with uncommon talents, which were concealed, and in effect lost to the world, under an almost impervious veil of moroseness, bigotry, and malevolence. The state of affairs on the other side of the Atlantic once more demands our attention. The reduction of Georgia by general Prevost and colonel Campbell, though in itself of no great BOOK importance, excited just alarm in the inhabitants XVIII. of the Carolinas, which were protected only by 1779, their own militia, and an inconsiderable body of continental troops under the command of general Lincoln, who lay encamped at Purisburg, on the north side of the river Savannah, about twenty miles above the town of that name. At the end of April 1779, this officer left that advantageous position, which enabled him effectu ally to cover the province, and marched along the banks of the river to Augusta, where he expected to be joined by powerful reinforcements; and he hoped, by passing the river, to eut off the communication of general Prevost with the back country, whence he received his supplies. But general Prevost was no sooner apprised of this movement than he determined to pass the Savannah at Purisburg, and make a rapid march towards Charlestown. This, the small force left by general Lincoln to guard the passage of the Savannah was not able to prevent; and the English army, consisting of about 4000 men, including Indians, arrived in the vicinity of that city on the 11th of May. To the chagrin of the English general, he found the place strongly fortified and well secured by the numerous militia which had now collected for its defence. After summoning the city in vain to surrender, he determined, on hearing that general Lincoln |