"So thought the British ministry when they sent to the New World
public agents authorized to offer every thing except independence to
these very Americans, from whom they had two years before exacted an
unconditional submission. It is not improbable, but that by this plan
of conciliation, a few months sooner, some effect might have been
produced. But at the period at which it was proposed by the Court of
London, it was rejected with disdain, because this measure appeared
but as an argument of fear and weakness. The people were already
re-assured. The Congress, the Generals, the troops, the bold and
skilful men in each colony, had possessed themselves of the authority;
every thing had recovered its first spirit. _This was the effect of a
treaty of friendship and commerce between the United States and the
Court of Versailles, signed the 8th of February, 1778._"

On this passage of the Abbe's I cannot help remarking, that, to unite
time with circumstance, is a material nicety in history; the want of
which frequently throws it into endless confusion and mistake,
occasions a total separation between causes and consequences, and
connects them with others they are not immediately, and sometimes not
at all, related to.

The Abbe, in saying that the offers of the British ministry "were
rejected with disdain," is _right_ as to the _fact_, but _wrong_ as to
the _time_; and this error in the time, has occasioned him to be
mistaken in the cause.

The signing the treaty of Paris the 6th of February, 1778, could have
no effect on the mind or politics of America, until it was _known in
America_; and therefore, when the Abbe says, that the rejection of the