_one North Briton._ George Johnstone; see last note on this page.
_Mr. Laurens._ Henry Laurens (1724-1792), of South Carolina; President of
Congress, 1777-78. The quoted phrases that follow are from Johnstone’s
letter to Laurens, 10 June 1778, soliciting a private interview. This
letter, with Laurens’ answer, was promptly made public by Congress.
_Ethan Allen._ Ethan Allen (1738-1789), famous for his partisan exploits
as leader of the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont; surprised and took
Fort Ticonderoga, May 1775; a captive in England, Canada, and New York,
September 1775-May 1778; author of a deistic treatise, _Reason the Only
Oracle of Man_, Bennington, Vermont, 1784.
_Dr. Adam Ferguson._ Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), LL.D.; Professor of
Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh; secretary
to the British commissioners to treat with America, 1778.
_Sir John Dalrymple._ Sir John Dalrymple (1726-1810), fourth Baronet;
author of the Tory _Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland_. _From the
Dissolution of the Last Parliament of Charles II until the Sea-Battle
off La Hogue_, 1771, the design of which (according to Horace Walpole)
was “to degrade & blacken the brightest names in English Story, & more
particularly the Protomartyrs of the Revolution, Lord Russel & Algernon
Sydney” (_Satirical Poems Published Anonymously by William Mason with
Notes by Horace Walpole_, ed. Paget Toynbee, Oxford, 1926, p. 115).
_the great Sidney._ Algernon Sidney (1622-1683), son of the second Earl
of Leicester; tried before Jeffreys and executed, December 1683, for
complicity in the Rye House Plot to murder Charles II and the Duke of
York.
_Governor Johnson._ George Johnstone (1730-1787), M.P. for Appleby;
formerly Governor of West Florida; one of North’s commissioners to treat
with America; see Introduction, p. 9. His conduct as commissioner was
quarrelsome, clumsy, and ineffectual; Carl Van Doren, _Secret History of
the American Revolution_, New York, 1941, pp. 96-104. Of his speech on
the opening day of the session Walpole reported:
Governor Johnston made a strange, unintelligible speech (it
was impossible for him to make a clear one without condemning
himself); he endeavoured to wipe off some of his attempt to
bribe some of the Congress, yet owned at much as he denied,
condemned and approved the march to Philadelphia, and rather
insinuated blame on Keppel than on anybody else. He was soon
after called upon in several newspapers to say, whether he did
not still retain his pay of Commissioner, though he had so long
quitted the office. He made no answer—consequently was by that
sinecure retained by the Court (_Last Journals_, II, 209).