Carlisle Peace Commission (1778)

Key figures: Frederick Howard (5th Earl of Carlisle), William Eden, George Johnstone, Lord North, Henry Laurens (President of Congress), Joseph Reed, Robert Morris, Francis Dana

Summary

The Carlisle Peace Commission was a British diplomatic mission dispatched to North America in April 1778 with authority to offer the American colonies sweeping concessions — including repeal of all parliamentary taxation levied since 1763 and effective home rule within the empire — in exchange for abandoning independence and remaining within the British Crown. The commission, authorized by Parliament through the Conciliatory Acts of February 1778, was a direct response to the catastrophic British defeat at Saratoga in October 1777 and the alarming news that France had signed a formal alliance with the United States.

The commission arrived in America to find that Congress, aware of the impending French alliance, had already hardened its terms: it would negotiate only on the basis of full British recognition of independence or complete withdrawal of British forces. The commission’s authority did not extend to either condition. Its credibility was further damaged when commissioner George Johnstone was discovered attempting to bribe members of Congress. The commissioners departed in December 1778 without having held a single substantive negotiation, marking the effective end of British attempts at conciliation and the beginning of Britain’s escalated southern military strategy.

Background: Saratoga and the French Alliance

The Carlisle Commission grew directly from two catastrophic British setbacks in the autumn and winter of 1777–1778. The British surrender at Saratoga on October 17, 1777 — the largest British capitulation in the war — shattered the assumption that military victory could be achieved quickly and cheaply. More alarming still was intelligence that France, emboldened by Saratoga, was moving toward formal recognition of American independence and a military alliance. The Franco-American Alliance, signed on February 6, 1778, confirmed those fears: France recognized the United States as a sovereign nation and committed to military support until American independence was secured.

Prime Minister Lord North responded in February 1778 by introducing the Conciliatory Acts in Parliament — a sharp reversal of the ministry’s position. Parliament passed the Taxation of Colonies Act, which repealed the Tea Act, disclaimed the Declaratory Act’s assertion of Parliament’s unlimited power to legislate for the colonies, and committed Parliament to levy no taxation on the colonies except to regulate trade. Lord North additionally proposed authorizing a peace commission with sweeping negotiating powers, including the ability to offer the colonies representation in Parliament and effective self-governance within the empire.

The Commission: Members and Instructions

Parliament constituted the commission in March 1778. Its members were:

Horace Walpole acidly described Carlisle as “very fit to make a treaty that will not be made,” noting his inexperience. Eden was widely regarded as the commission’s most capable member. The commission’s formal instructions authorized it to offer:

• Suspension of all parliamentary acts affecting the colonies passed since 1763
• No parliamentary taxation except for trade regulation
• Representation of American colonies in the Westminster Parliament (if desired)
• Recognition of the Continental Congress as a legitimate body
• Effective home rule, amounting to dominion status

The commission was not authorized to offer independence or to commit to full military withdrawal — the two conditions Congress would later demand.

Arrival and Congress’s Rejection

The commissioners departed England in mid-April 1778 and arrived at Philadelphia in June, to find the city in the midst of the British evacuation ordered by General Sir Henry Clinton. The British withdrawal from Philadelphia — itself a consequence of the strategic shift forced by the French alliance — was visible proof to Congress that American leverage was increasing, not decreasing.

On June 13, 1778, the commissioners transmitted their formal proposals to Congress, then sitting at York, Pennsylvania. Congress responded on June 17 with a resolution rejecting the offer and stating non-negotiable terms: Britain must either withdraw all land and naval forces from the United States, or explicitly recognize American independence, before any negotiations could begin. Neither condition was within the commission’s authority.

Congress publicly explained its position to the American people: having already committed to an alliance with France on the basis of independence, it could not now treat with Britain on any other basis without dishonoring that alliance and destroying American credibility as a partner. The Franco-American Alliance had pre-empted the commission.

The Johnstone Bribery Scandal

Before the formal rejection, commissioner George Johnstone undermined the commission’s standing through a series of improper approaches to individual members of Congress. Johnstone attempted to bribe at least three delegates — Joseph Reed of Pennsylvania, Francis Dana of Massachusetts, and Robert Morris of Pennsylvania — offering personal rewards in exchange for support for the British proposals or influence toward a favorable outcome. The delegates each reported the approaches to Congress.

Congress responded by formally resolving that any delegate who held communications with Johnstone would be considered a traitor to the American cause. Johnstone withdrew from the commission in August 1778, acknowledging the impossibility of continuing. His removal eliminated one of the commission’s most politically engaged members, but the damage to the mission’s credibility was already irreparable.

Final Efforts and Departure

With formal negotiations impossible and Johnstone’s departure adding to the commission’s difficulties, Carlisle and Eden attempted other approaches. They published open letters and manifestos addressed directly to the American public, attempting to bypass Congress and appeal to those they believed retained loyalty to Britain or feared the long-term consequences of dependence on France.

On October 10, 1778, the commission issued a threatening manifesto warning Americans that their French alliance made them effectively tributaries of France, and that Britain would have no choice but to prosecute the war with all available force if negotiations were refused. The manifesto — more a declaration of frustration than a diplomatic instrument — was condemned in England as well as America. The opposition Marquess of Rockingham publicly denounced it in Parliament.

Johnstone had returned to England in August. Carlisle and Eden followed in November and December 1778, their mission entirely unsuccessful. The commission had been in North America for approximately six months without holding a single formal negotiating session with American representatives.

William Eden’s Strategy and the Commission’s Internal Dynamics

William Eden, the commission’s most capable member, recognized almost immediately upon arrival that the mission was likely doomed. His private letters to Lord North during June–August 1778 — preserved in the Manuscripts of Lord Auckland (British Library) — describe his frustration with the timing, with Congress’s inflexibility, and with Johnstone’s improper conduct. Eden had hoped that the commission’s authority to offer effective self-governance — “dominion status” in modern parlance, decades before that concept was formalized — might find traction with Americans who feared the long-term implications of dependence on France. He argued in these letters that the French alliance bound America to a European power whose interests were not always aligned with American ones, and that thoughtful Americans might prefer honorable terms within the empire to permanent entanglement in European politics.

Eden’s argument was not entirely without resonance. Privately, some Congress delegates — including men whose political careers rested on wartime patriotism — recognized that the terms offered by the commission in 1778 exceeded what the colonies had demanded in 1774. The repeal of all parliamentary taxation since 1763, the recognition of Congress as a legitimate body, and the offer of representation in Westminster together constituted an extraordinary reversal of the policies that had precipitated the revolution. But the timing made acceptance politically impossible: having concluded the French alliance and published it to the world on February 6, 1778, Congress could not negotiate with Britain without first dishonoring France.

Eden departed in November 1778 convinced that a major opportunity had been permanently missed. He later wrote that had the commission’s offer been made two years earlier — before the Declaration of Independence hardened American opinion and before France had committed to the alliance — it might well have succeeded. His assessment reflected a broader consensus among British moderates: that the timing of concessions, not their substance, had determined the war’s outcome.

Henry Laurens and Congress’s Response

Henry Laurens, President of the Continental Congress in 1778, handled the commission’s overtures with a combination of procedural formality and substantive firmness that reflected Congress’s institutional maturity. Laurens (1724–1792), a wealthy South Carolina merchant who had been elected to the Congress presidency in November 1777, was a man of precise legal and commercial sensibilities. When the commission’s formal proposals arrived on June 13, 1778, Laurens organized Congress’s response with characteristic attention to proper form: the reply of June 17 was formally drafted, voted upon, and dispatched through official channels.

Laurens’s later career added a bitter postscript to the commission episode. In September 1780, captured at sea while sailing to the Netherlands to negotiate a treaty of amity, Laurens was imprisoned in the Tower of London — the only American to be held there during the Revolution — and held until exchanged in December 1781 for Lord Cornwallis, who had surrendered at Yorktown. His imprisonment, which began two years after the commission’s failure, illustrated the depth of Anglo-American antagonism that the commission’s collapse had confirmed.

Significance

Britain’s Last Conciliation Attempt

The Carlisle Commission was the last serious British attempt to negotiate a settlement short of independence. Its failure closed the door on reconciliation and committed both sides to a war whose scope had been transformed by the French alliance. Britain’s subsequent strategic shift — the so-called “southern strategy” beginning in late 1778 — reflected the conclusion that only military victory, not negotiation, could recover the situation. No substantive peace negotiations resumed until after the British defeat at Yorktown in October 1781.

The Hardening of American War Aims

The commission’s very existence, by arriving too late and offering too little, reinforced American resolve. Congress’s public handling of the Johnstone bribery scandal strengthened its domestic standing, allowing it to present the rejection as a triumph of principle over corruption. The episode demonstrated that American war aims had narrowed irrevocably to independence: the terms that Lord North’s government was offering in 1778 — terms that historians have noted might have prevented war entirely had they been offered in 1775 — were now insufficient.

Connection to the Franco-American Alliance

The commission’s failure is inseparable from the success of Benjamin Franklin’s diplomacy in Paris. The Franco-American Alliance not only gave Congress the military backing to reject British terms; it gave Congress the diplomatic leverage to demand conditions Britain could not grant. The alliance transformed the American strategic position from one of desperation to one of increasing confidence in the months between Valley Forge and Monmouth.

Prelude to the Southern Campaign

The commission’s departure in December 1778 coincided almost exactly with the beginning of Britain’s southern campaign: British forces captured Savannah, Georgia, on December 29, 1778. The shift from negotiation to intensified military operations in the South represented Britain’s recognition that no political solution was available — a recognition the commission’s failure had made unavoidable.

See Also

• Treaty of Alliance (France–United States) — the Franco-American alliance that pre-empted the commission’s proposals and transformed Congress’s negotiating position
• Britain Declares War on France — Britain’s declaration in March 1778, the consequence of the same French intervention that doomed the commission
• Treaty of Paris Negotiations: 1778 Diplomatic Foundations — the Franco-American diplomacy that pre-empted the commission and shaped the 1783 peace
• William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) — whose collapse and death in April–May 1778 removed the leading advocate for conciliation from British politics
• Valley Forge Encampment Ends — the Continental Army’s transformation at Valley Forge gave Congress the military confidence to reject British terms
• Battle of Monmouth — fought while the commission was in America; demonstrated American military capability that reinforced Congress’s resolve
• Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) — whose success in negotiating the French alliance made Congress’s rejection of the commission possible
• Henry Laurens (1724–1792) — the Continental Congress president who orchestrated Congress’s formal, unambiguous rejection of the commission’s overtures in June 1778

Sources

• Carlisle Peace Commission — Wikipedia
• Carlisle Commission — Britannica Encyclopedia
• Peace Commission of Carlisle — Encyclopedia.com
• A Further Evaluation of the Carlisle Peace Commission’s Initiative — Journal of the American Revolution
• Response to British Peace Proposals — Teaching American History (Congressional resolution of June 17, 1778)