Richard Henry Lee to Second Peace Commission

I have recei your letter of and laid it before Congress with its inclosures - In answer I am instructed to inform you, that Congress ever ready to stop the effusion of human blood - have been induced to hear your letter read, thro out and have Considered it with a coolness that that having to consider its inclosures and notwithstanding the very inadmissible and offensive things that are contained in the former. <Tho> It is impossible Congress can fail to be affected with the highest resentment at the indignity offered them by the indecent reflections you have thought proper to make upon his most Ch. Majesty the Great & good ally of these States. The Commission from his Britannic Majesty under which you act, a copy of which you have inclosed, and the Acts of Parliament on which the Commission is founded, being both formed upon the idea of the good people of these States being Subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, and proposing peace upon dependent principles and a return to the domination of a power that hath accumulated every injury and insult, on their unoffending State, Congress consider them both as totally inadmissable, and cannot consent to any further communication on such grounds - I am further instructed to inform your Excellency that Congress will be always ready to enter upon the Consideration of a Treaty of Peace, when a sincere disposition thereto shall be evidenced on the part of G.B. by an explicit acknowledgement of the Independence of their States, and by withdrawing his Fleets from our Coasts and his Armies from the 13 States -