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174 to their justice and humanity, will so obviously depend. But if, after having pressed this plan of treaty to the utmost, you should find the American Commissioners determined not to proceed unless the independence be irrevocably acknowledged, without reference to the final settlement of the rest of the treaty, you are to endeavour to obtain from them a declaration, that if this point of independence were settled, they would be satisfied, as far as relates to America, with such farther concessions as are contained in the four articles as above stated. You are then, but in the very last resort, to inform them, in manifestation of the King's most earnest desire to remove every impediment to peace, that His Majesty is willing, without waiting for the other branches of the negotiation, to recommend to his Parliament to enable him forthwith to acknowledge the independence of the Thirteen united Colonies, absolutely and irrevocably; and not depending upon the event of any other part of a treaty. But upon the whole, it is His Majesty's express command, that you do exert your greatest address to the purpose of prevailing upon the American Commissioners to proceed in the treaty, and to admit the article of independence as a part, or as one only of the other articles which you are hereby empowered to conclude."

It now became impossible for Jay to deny the good faith of the English Ministers. He received almost simultaneously a further proof of the designs of France and Spain in the shape of an elaborate memorandum from Rayneval, showing the nullity of the right of the United States to the valley of the Mississippi; and of a despatch from M. de Marbois, the French chargé d'affaires