urn
from the eastward, and I beg you, Sir, to consider with him how to
make the legion early useful; it may be very usefully employed in the
service above mentioned, and the Duke will be happy to act in any
manner your Excellency may wish.

In all cases, it cannot but be of service to hold ourselves in a
hostile position. If the negotiations produce the happy effects we
wish, I will lose no time in informing you, and knowing your humane
disposition, I think I never shall announce to you a more agreeable
event than a general peace, honorable and safe to the allies. You are
convinced how sincerely the King wishes it, and the sacrifices he has
made to obtain it will prove this.

If the treaty has been communicated to you, Sir, you will have seen
that the King of England has reserved to himself the liberty to
conclude, or not to conclude, the treaty of peace with America, so
that the act signed the 30th of November by the respective
Commissioners, is merely conditional and eventual.

I have the honor to be, &c.

LUZERNE.

* * * * *

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

Translation.

Philadelphia, March 18th, 1783.

Sir,

I have the honor of sending you a copy of a letter, which I have
written to Mr Robert Morris. I shall soon have the honor of
communicating to you some news, which I have just received from France
by the packet boat Washington.

I have the honor to be, &c.

LUZERNE.

* * * * *

GEORGE WASHINGTON TO M. DE LA LUZERNE.

Head Quarters, March 19th, 1783.

Sir,

I am exceedingly obliged to your Excellency for your communication of
the 15th. The Articles of the treaty between America and Great
Britain, as they stand in connexion with a general pacification, are
so very inconclusive, that I am fully in sentiment with your
Excellency, that we should hold ourselves in a hostile position,
prepared for either alternative, peace or war.

I shall confer with the Duc de la Lauzun on the objects you are
pleased to mention; and as I have ever viewed the practice of the
States in supplying the enemy in New York with the means of
subsistence, as a very pernicious one in its tendency, b