Carlisle Peace Commission The Carlisle Peace Commission was a group of British negotiators who were sent to North America in 1778 , during the American War of Independence , with an offer to the rebellious Thirteen Colonies , who had declared themselves to be the United States , of self - rule and Parliamentary representation within the British Empire . The Continental Congress , aware that British troops were about to be withdrawn from Philadelphia , insisted on demanding full independence , which the commission was not authorised to grant . The Peace Commission marked the first time the British government formally agreed to negotiate with Congress ; a previous attempt at negotiation in 1776 took place despite lacking that formality . Background . The first attempt at negotiation between Great Britain and the rebellious Thirteen Colonies after the outbreak in April 1775 of the American War of Independence took place in September 1776 , when a committee from the Second Continental Congress agreed to meet with Admiral Lord Richard Howe , who had been given limited powers to treat with colonies individually . The limited authority given to both Howe and the American negotiators made it a virtual certainty that nothing would come of the meeting . The meeting was a failure , in part because the Congress had recently declared independence from Britain , something Howe was not authorised to recognise , and because the American commissioners had no substantive authority from Congress to negotiate . After the British defeat at Saratoga in October 1777 , and fearful of French recognition of American independence , the Prime Minister , Lord North , had Parliament repeal such offensive measures as the Tea Act and the Massachusetts Government Act , and sent a commission to seek a negotiated settlement with the Continental Congress . The commission was empowered to offer a type of self - rule that Thomas Pownall had first proposed a decade earlier ( and which later formed the foundation of British Commonwealth status ) . The fact that the commission was authorised to negotiate with the Continental Congress as a body also represented a change in official British government policy , which had before then been to treat only with the individual states . Historian David Wilson is of the opinion that the war could have been avoided if the terms it proposed had been offered in 1775 . Historian Peter Whiteley , however , notes that King George was unlikely to agree to make such an offer then . Commission . William Eden organized and served on the commission , but it was headed by the Earl of Carlisle , and also included George Johnstone who had previously served as Governor of West Florida . Walpole remarked that Carlisle , then a young man , was " very fit to make a treaty that will not be made " and that he " was totally unacquainted with business and though not void of ambition , had but moderate parts and less application . " Richard Jackson declined to serve after it became known that the United States and France had signed a Treaty of Alliance . The commissioners also learned of the Franco - American alliance before they set out in April . One thing the commissioners did not learn before their departure was that General Sir Henry Clinton had been ordered to evacuate Philadelphia , even though his orders had been issued one month before they left . Carlisle was of the opinion that the administration had done this intentionally , since they might not otherwise have gone at all . Carlisle wrote to his wife of the situation , " We all look grave , and perhaps we think we look wise . I fear nobody will think so when we return . . . I don ' t see what we have to do here . " Upon learning of the planned withdrawal , Carlisle appealed to Clinton to delay it , but Clinton cited his orders to act without delay in rejecting the appeal . This prompted Carlisle to observe that the administration wanted the commission to be " a mixture of ridicule , nullity , and embarrassments . " Eden was upset that he wasn ' t told of Clinton ' s orders , since the British intent to withdraw further stiffened American resolve . On June 13 , the commissioners sent a package of proposals to Congress , which was then holding sessions in York , Pennsylvania . Congress replied insisting that either American independence be recognised , or that all British forces first withdraw from the states , terms the commission was not authorised to accept . The commission attempted to appeal to public opinion , with warnings of widespread destruction , but was unsuccessful . Johnstone tried to bribe some Congressmen , and the Marquis de Lafayette challenged Carlisle to a duel over some anti - French statements he had made . Gouverneur Morris wrote several essays against the proposals . The Commissioners circulated a Manifesto , which was printed in the " Hartford Courant " , October 10 , 1778 . The Marquess of Rockingham , a leading opponent of the war , objected to the threats in the Manifesto , and moved to disavow it . Aftermath . Johnstone sailed to Britain in August , and the other commissioners returned in November 1778 . The British , being unable to bring Washington 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 . There was , however , a further attempt in December 1780 to seek a diplomatic peace in the form of the Clinton - Arbuthnot peace commission , but it met with failure . There were no further substantive peace overtures until after the American victory at Yorktown in 1781 .