216 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS render of Lord Cornwallis at that place, October 19, 1781. Representatives of our French allies and of the German participants were present. At the close of the celebration the president felicitously directed a salute to be fired in honor of the British flag, "in recognition of the friendly relations so long and so happily subsisting between Great Britain and the United States, in the trust and con fidence of peace and good- will between the two countries for all the centuries to come, and es pecially as a mark of the profound respect enter tained by the American people for the illustrious sovereign and gracious lady who sits upon the British throne." On November 29, 1881, an invita tion was extended to all the independent countries of North and South America to participate in a peace congress, to be convened at Washington November 22, 1882. The president, in a special message, April 18, 1882, asked the opinion of con gress as to the expediency of the project. No re sponse being elicited, he concluded, August 9, 1882, to postpone indefinitely the proposed convocation, believing that so important a step should not be taken without the express authority of congress; or while three of the nations to be invited were at war; or still, again, until a program should have been prepared explicitly indicating the objects and limiting the powers of the congress. Efforts were made, however, to strengthen the relations of the
