The
British gave him plenty of time to make plans, and for a reason.
We have seen that Lord Howe was not only an admiral to make war
but also an envoy to make peace. The British victory on Long
Island might, he thought, make Congress more willing to
negotiate. So now he sent to Philadelphia the captured American
General Sullivan, with the request that some members of Congress
might confer privately on the prospects for peace.
Howe probably did not realize that the Americans had the British
quality of becoming more resolute by temporary reverses. By this
time, too, suspicion of every movement on the part of Great
Britain had become a mania. Every one in Congress seems to have
thought that Howe was planning treachery. John Adams, excepted by
name from British offers of pardon, called Sullivan a "decoy
duck" and, as he confessed, laughed, scolded, and grieved at any
negotiation. The wish to talk privately with members of Congress
was called an insulting way of avoiding recognition of that body.
In spite of this, even the stalwart Adams and the suave Franklin
were willing to be members of a committee which went to meet Lord
Howe. With great sorrow Howe now realized that he had no power to
grant what Congress insisted upon, the recognition of
independence, as a preliminary to negotiation.
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