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Show 90 THE GOLDEN HOUR. But so did it not rctnain. The tea reddened wiLh the blood of noble hearts, as did the water of Beth~ lchcn1 when it carne to the king. Battle after battle Cllt 011 to death a to their beet ; and can1c ; n1cn \V f ~1 r. ·cs of war emerged the grand figure of 1'0111 lJ 1.0 ill (. I d d rfhcn all the duties 111ight have been n open once. ta1 t en o (f, b u t A1ncric~a... wonlJ. not have drank to the health of a tyrant what had now become the blood of her noble sons ; nothing lc s than entire independence was worthy 0 co tly a libation. In the month of Angu t, 1776,* i1nrncdiatcly after the defeat of the A1ncricans on Long I ·land, and whilst that di a .. 'icr ·was not only dctnorn1izing the anny under "\Va ·hington, but spreading di ·tnay and con tor~ t. na 1on am0 11 br r tl1c n1ost rc olutc of tho advocates of lndcpcndcncc, General IIowc, wishing to take advan-tage of the terror which victory inspires, and persuading hiln elf that the American. , di hcartcncu by so 1nany checks, would be more modest in their pretensions, de patched General Sullivan to Congrcs. , with a 1110 age purporting that, though he could not consistently treat with that assembly in tho character they had assumed, yet he would gladly confer ·with some of their members in their private capacity, and would * This incident was briefly alluded to in (( The R ejected Stone"; the number of inquiries whirh have been made of me concerning it, and its appropriateness to the argument of this chapter, encourage me to condense the account from Carlo Botta's lli tory, in which alone I have been able to find it, though it is certainly one of the most striking of our Rev· olutionary records. TIIE COXSECHATIO~ OF HEROISM. 91 meet thcn1 at any place they woulu appoint. lie iuforn1cd tho1n that he \vas ctnpowercu, with the Admiral, hi~ brother, to tcnuinatc the contc t between Great Britain and A1ncriea upon condition.· equally advantageous to both. lie a ·sured thcn1 that, if they were inclinccl to enter into an agreement, much 1nigl 1t be granted them which they hau not required. Ilc concluded by saying, that, should tho conference produce the probability of an acco1ntnodation, tho authority of Congress ·would be acknowledged, in order to render the trca ty valiu and co1nplcte in every ro ·poet. To this Congrc s n1aclc an ·wcr, through G en oral Sullivan, that the Congrc ·s of the Free and Independent States of America could not, con is ten L1 y with the trust r eposed in the1n, send their lTIOlnbcr · to confer with any one whomsoever, othcr,vi"c than in their puulic capacity. But that, as they desired that peace n1ight be concluded upon equitable conditions, they would depute a committee of their body to learn what proposals they had to offer. 'rho Deputies appointed by Congress to hear tho propo ·ition of the Briti h Co1nmi _ sioncrs (General II owe and Adtniral Lord II owe) were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge, all three zealous aclvoca tcs of Independence. The interview took place on September 11th, on taten Island, oppo ito A1nboy, where the British general had his head-quarters. The result of tho interview showed to what a hei(rht b the war, which began about a paltry tax, had risen un- |