The steps that may lead to so important an event as peace upon safe and honorable terms, are too interesting to be withheld from you; I have the honor, therefore, to enclose a copy of Mr Oswald's commission to treat with the Thirteen United States of America, which will certainly smooth the way to it, though the variety of interests to be adjusted at a general Congress (and, perhaps, too, the success of the British arms at Gibraltar) may place it further off than our wishes would otherwise lead us to imagine.
Your Excellency will see the propriety of not suffering copies of this commission to be taken for the press, and of accompanying the communication you may think proper to make of it, with such recommendations to exertion and vigilance, as prudence and the critical state of our affairs may require, since on a review of the conduct of the enemy, it will not appear extravagant to suppose, that this may be another of those artifices so often practised to deceive and put us off our guard. Though we have no official accounts, yet we have every reason to believe, that the treaty of commerce with the United Provinces was signed on the 7th of October.
I have the honor to be, &c.
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
TO WILLIAM GREENE, GOVERNOR OF RHODE ISLAND.
Philadelphia, January 4th, 1783.
Sir,
Agreeably to the order of Congress, I have the honor to lay before your Excellency the enclosed copy of a motion made by Mr Howel, and the resolutions of Congress thereon, together with the state of the applications for foreign loans, and the results thereof.
Without troubling your Excellency with those inconsiderable and secret aids, which we received at the beginning of the controversy, I shall take the applications and the grants, that were made in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventynine, and since. To begin with