the
committee to Amboy, opposite the house. Adams traveled on horseback:
Franklin and Rutledge in a two wheel chaise.

Admiral Howe sent a boat, under the protection of a flag of truce,
with an officer, who stated that he was to be left behind as a hostage
for their safe return. Promptly they declined manifesting any such
distrust of the honor of Admiral Howe, and took the hostage back in
the boat with them. The barge, propelled by lusty rowers, soon reached
the Staten Island shore. A large apartment of the old stone house had
been richly decorated with moss and branches in honor of the occasion.

A regiment of Hessians was posted at that spot. The colonel drew them
up in two lines and through this lane of soldiers the commissioners
advanced from the beach to the house. When Admiral Howe saw that the
officer he had sent as a hostage had been returned, he said,

"Gentlemen, you pay me a high compliment."

Cordially the kind-hearted admiral received his guests, and invited
them to an ample collation of cold ham, tongues, mutton and wine. Mr.
Henry Strachey, secretary of Lord Howe, wrote a very full report of
the interview, which accords entirely with the narrative which John
Adams presented to Congress. In as sincere and friendly words as human
lips could pronounce, the Admiral assured the American gentlemen of
his earnest desire to promote reconciliation between the colonists and
the mother country. He alluded to the fact that in England he had been
regarded as the friend of America, and to the honor Massachusetts had
conferred upon his family by rearing a monument to his brother, who
had fallen at Ticonderoga. Franklin well knew that Howe was regarded
as the friend of America.

"I assure you, gentlemen," said Lord Howe, "that I esteem that honor
to my family, above all things in this world. Such is my gratitude and
affection to this country, on that account, that I feel for America as
for a brother. And if America should fall, I should feel and lament it
like the loss of a brother." The reply of Franklin to these sincere
words, seems a little discourteous. Assuming an air of great
indifference and confidence, as though the fall of America was an idea
not to be thought of, he bowed, and with one of his blandest smiles
said, "I assure you, my lord, that we will do everything in our power
to save your lordship from that mortification."

The admiral was feeling too deeply for jokes. He was wounded by the
rebuke appa