The utmost address of the British cabinet had been employed to detach the belligerents from each other.

The mediation of Russia had been accepted to procure a separate peace with Holland; propositions had been submitted both to France and Spain, tending to an accommodation of differences with each of those powers singly; and inquiries had been made of Mr.Adams, the American minister at the Hague, which seemed to contemplate the same object with regard to the United States.

These political manoeuvres furnished additional motives for doubting the sincerity of the English cabinet.

Whatever views might actuate the court of St.James on this subject, the resolution of the American government to make no separate treaty was unalterable.[11] [Footnote 11: Secret Journals of Congress, v.

2, pp.