Johnstone sailed to Britain in August, and the other commissioners returned in November 1778. The British, being unable to bring General George Washington's Continental Army to a decisive engagement, resumed the military campaign and turned to a Southern Strategy as their next attempt to win the war in North America. A further attempt in December 1780 to seek a diplomatic peace in the form of the Clinton-Arbuthnot peace commission, failed, and there were no further substantive peace overtures until the American victory at Yorktown in 1781.