s rate; and if we cannot return to our old
mutual hospitalities towards each other, a very few years will show us a
most formidable hostile marine, ready to join hands with any of our
enemies.... I will venture to prophesy that the principles of a federal
alliance are the only terms of peace that ever will and that ever ought
to obtain between the two countries."[76]

On the 15th June, immediately afterwards, the Parliamentary History
reports briefly:--

"Mr. Hartley went upon the cruelties of slavery, and urged the Board of
Trade to take some means of mitigating it. He produced a pair of
handcuffs, which he said was a manufacture they were now going to
establish."[77]

Thus again the abolitionist reappeared in the vindicator of our
independence. On the 22d June, 1779, he brought forward another formal
motion "for reconciliation with America," and, in the course of a
well-considered speech, denounced the ministers for "headstrong and
inflexible obstinacy in prosecuting a cruel and destructive American
war."[78] On the 3d December, 1779, in what is called "a very long
speech," he returned to his theme, inveighing against ministers for "the
favorite, though wild, Quixotic, and impracticable measure of coercing
America."[79] These are only instances.

During this time he had maintained a correspondence with Franklin, which
appears in the "Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution," and all of
which attests his desire for peace. In 1778 he came to Paris on a
confidential errand, especially to confer with Franklin. It was on this
occasion that John Adams met him and judged him severely. In 1783 he was
appointed a commissioner to sign the definitive Treaty of Peace.

These things belong to history. Though perhaps not generally known, they
are accessible. I have presented them partly for their intrinsic value
and their prophetic character, and partly as an introduction to an
unpublished letter from Hartley which I received some time ago from an
English friend who has since been called away from important labors. The
letter concerns _emigration to our country and the payment of the
national debt_.

The following indorsement will explain its character:--

"_Note._ This is a copy of the material portion of a long letter from D.
Hartley, the British Commissioner in Paris, to Lord Sydenham, January,
1785. The original was sold by C. Robinson, of 21 Bond Street, London,
on the 6th April, 1859, at a sale of Hartley's MSS. a