This last application (which was made on the 20th of April, 1779) of Mr Hartley to Lord North, after several previous conferences on the subject, is the ground of the present confidential communication with Dr Franklin, on the part of Mr Hartley, who states to Dr Franklin, as he did to Lord North, that an auspicious beginning of a negotiation is dimidium facti.
Mr Hartley's ideas of the probable course of the negotiation would be to the following effect;
1. Five Commissioners (or any three of them) to be appointed on the part of His Britannic Majesty to treat, consult, and agree upon the final settlement and pacification of the present troubles, upon safe, honorable, and permanent terms, subject to ratification by Parliament.
2. That any one of the aforesaid Commissioners may be empowered to agree, as a preliminary, to a suspension of hostilities by sea and land, for a certain term of five or seven years.
3. That any one of the aforesaid Commissioners be empowered to agree, as a second preliminary, to suspend the operation and effect of any and all acts of Parliament respecting America, for a certain term of five or seven years.
4. That it is expected, as a third preliminary, that America should be released, free and unengaged, from any treaties with foreign powers, which may tend to embarrass or defeat the present proposed negotiation.
5. That a general treaty for negotiation shall be set on foot as soon as may be, after the agreement of the foregoing preliminaries.
N. B. A doubt seeming to arise from Lord North, relative to the probability of any explanatory communication on the part of Dr Franklin, Mr Hartley expressed, he thought it possible, that as a known friend to peace, he might be considered by Dr Franklin as a depot of any communications, which may serve from time to time to facilitate the terms of peace; which therefore prevents this communication from being considered as any direct overture from Lord North to Dr Franklin, or from Dr Franklin to Lord North; but as it is merely a mediatorial proposition of Mr Hartley, as a private person, for the purpose of bringing the parties to a parley.