[4] The answer of the Court of Madrid is missing.
_Answer of the Court of France to the Reply of the Mediators._
The King has received, with equal sensibility and gratitude, the answer of the two mediating Courts; his Majesty regards it as a new proof of their friendship for him, of the just estimate which they form of his confidence in their impartiality, and of the true interest which they take in the prompt re-establishment of peace.
The King has not changed, and will not change, in his desire to second views so salutary; and the two high mediating powers may be assured, that so far as concerns his Majesty, it will not be owing to him, if they are not soon in a situation to give full scope to their beneficent zeal.
But the Court of London deprives the King of every expedient and every hope, on this subject, by its invariable resolution to regard and treat the Americans as its subjects. Such a resolution renders abortive every exertion, that may be made for obtaining peace. It utterly destroys the plan of the two mediating powers, since it decides, in the most peremptory manner, the question which is the subject of dispute, and the direct or indirect decision of which should be the preliminary basis of the future pacification.
In this state of things the King thinks, that the conferences, proposed by the two mediating Courts, would at present be without effect, and that the meeting of the respective plenipotentiaries would be but a vain pretence, which would not diminish nor abridge the horrors of war, and which might compromise the dignity of their Imperial Majesties.
The King is truly sorry to see, that things have taken a direction so contrary to his wishes, and to the expectations of their Imperial Majesties; and, if it were in his power to change it, he would do it with an eagerness, which would show to them the purity of his intentions; but his Majesty thinks it his duty to observe, that he has allies with whom he has inviolable engagements, that he should betray them by abandoning the American cause, and that he should betray this cause, if he consented to negotiate a peace separate from and independent of the United States. The high mediating powers have perceived the impossibility of such a proceeding, since they have themselves proposed to place the negotiation of the King, and that of the United States, upon an equal footing.