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Independence had sprung from the instructions CHAP. of the people; it was now accepted and confirmed as their own work in cities and villages, in townmeetings and legislatures, in the camp and the training-field. The civilized world had the deepest interest in the result; for it involved the reform of the British parliament, the emancipation of Ireland, the disinthralment of the people of France, the awakening of the nations of Europe. Even Hungary stretched forward to hear from the distance the gladsome sound; and Italians recalled their days of unity and might. Thirteen states had risen up, free from foreign influence, to create their own civil institutions, and join together as one. The report went out among all nations, so that the effort, whatever might follow, could never fade away from the memory of the human race.

The arrow had sped towards its mark, when Lord Howe entered upon the scene with his commission for restoring peace. As a naval officer, he added great experience and nautical skill to a wholesome severity of discipline and steady, cool, phlegmatic courage. Naturally taciturn, his manner of expres sion was confused. His profile was like that of his grandfather, George the First; his complexion was very dark; his grim features had no stamp of superiority; but his face wore an expression of serene and passive fortitude. He was as unsuspicious as he was brave. Of an ingenuous disposition and a good heart, he sincerely designed to act the part of a mediator, not of a destroyer, and indulged in visions of riding about the country, conversing with its principal inhabitants, and restoring the king's

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CHAP. authority by methods of moderation and concession. At Halifax he told Admiral Arbuthnot "that peace would be made within ten days after his arrival." His fond wish to heal the breach led him to misconceive the extent of his commission. He thought himself possessed of large powers, and with a simplicity which speaks for his sincerity, he did not discover how completely they were circumscribed or annulled. He could pardon individuals on their return to the king's protection, and could grant an amnesty to insurgent communities which should lay down their arms and dissolve all their governments. The only further privilege which his long altercation wrung from the ministry was a vague permission to converse with private men on their alleged grievances, and to report their opinions; but he could not judge of their complaints or promise that they would be heeded; and he was strictly forbidden to treat with the continental congress or any provincial congress, or any civil or military officer holding their commission.

It was the evening of the twelfth when Lord Howe reached Staten Island. His brother, who had impatiently expected him, was of the opinion "that a numerous body of the inhabitants of New York, the Jerseys, and Connecticut only waited for opportunities to prove their loyalty; but that peace could not be restored until the rebel army should be defeated." Lord Howe had confidence in himself, and did not lower his hopes. He had signed, while at sea, a declaration which had been sketched by Wedderburn in England, and which was the counterpart of his instructions. It announced his authority sep

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arately, not less than jointly with his brother, to CHAP. grant free and general pardons; and it promised "due consideration to all persons who should aid 1776. in restoring tranquillity." On this weak profession, which virtually admitted that the king and parliament had no boon to offer except forgiveness on submission, and no chance of obtaining advocates for peace but by methods of corruption, he relied for the swift and bloodless success of his mission.

The person with whom he most wished to hold intercourse was the American commander-in-chief. On the second day after his arrival, he sent a white flag up the harbor, with a copy of his decla ration, enclosed in a letter addressed to Washington as a private man. But Washington, apart from his office, could not enter into a correspondence with the king's commissioner; and Reed and Webb, who went to meet the messenger, following their instructions, declined to receive the communication. Lord Howe was grieved at the rebuff; in the judgment of congress, Washington "acted with a dignity becoming his station."

On the same day, Lord Howe sent a flag across the Kill to Amboy, with copies of his declaration in circular letters to all the old royal governors south of New York, although nearly every one of those governors was a fugitive. The papers fell into the hands of Mercer, and through Washington were transmitted to congress.

Lord Howe tried also to advance his purpose by forwarding conciliatory letters written in England to persons in America. Those which he had concerted with De Berdt, son of the old agent of

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CHAP. Massachusetts, to Kinsey of New Jersey, and to Reed of Pennsylvania, were public in their nature, though private in their form, and were promptly referred by their recipients to congress. In them he suffered it to be said, that he had for two months delayed sailing from England, in order to obtain an enlargement of his instructions; that he was disposed to treat; that he had power to compromise and adjust, and desired a parley with Americans on the footing of friends. Reed, who was already thoroughly sick of the contest, thought "the overture ought not to be rejected;" and through Robert Morris he offered most cheerfully to take such a part "on the occasion as his situation and abilities would admit."

The gloom that hung over the country was deepening its shades; one British corps after another was arriving; the fleet commanded the waters of New York, and two ships of war had, on the twelfth, passed the American batteries with very little injury, ascending the Hudson river for the encouragement of the disaffected, and totally cutting off all intercourse by water between Washington's camp and Albany. Greene had once before warned. John Adams of the hopelessness of the contest; and again on the fourteenth he wrote: "I still think you are playing a desperate game." But as the claim of absolute power by parliament to tax the colonies and to change their charters was not renounced, congress showed no wavering. "Lord Howe," reasoned Samuel Adams, "comes with terms disgraceful to human nature. If he is a good friend to man, as letters import, I am mistaken if he is not

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weak and ductile. He has always voted, as I am CHAP. told, in favor of the king's measures in parliament, and at the same time professed himself a friend to the liberties of America. He seems to me, either never to have had any good principles at all, or not to have presence of mind openly and uniformly to avow them." Robert Morris surrendered his interest and inclination to the ruling principle of his public life, resolved as a good citizen to follow if he could not lead, and thenceforward supported independence. As the only answer to Lord Howe, congress, on the nineteenth, resolved that its own great state-paper of the fourth of July should be fairly engrossed on parchment as "the unanimous declaration of the thirteen UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," and signed by every one of its members. In justification of this act, it directed Lord Howe's circular letter and declaration to be published, "that the good people of these United States may be informed of what nature are the commissioners, and what the terms with the expectation of which the insidious court of Britain has endeavored to amuse and disarm them; and that the few who still remain suspended by a hope, founded either in the justice or moderation of their late king, may now, at length, be convinced that the valor alone of their country is to save its liberties."

Before this decision could reach Washington, he had made his own opinions known. In reply to the resolution of congress on the massacre of the prisoners who had capitulated at the Cedars, General Howe had, on the sixteenth, sent him a note, addressed to him without any recognition of his official