In the Days of Poor Richard Part 36

General Was.h.i.+ngton was with his forces some miles north of the other sh.o.r.e of the river. A messenger was sent for him. Next day the Commander-in-Chief found his Long Island brigades in a condition of disorder and panic. Squads and companies, eager for a fight, were prowling through the bush in the south like hunters after game. A number of the new Connecticut boys had deserted. Some of them had been captured and brought back. In speaking of the matter, Was.h.i.+ngton said:

"We must be tolerant. These lads are timid. They have been dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life. They are unused to the restraints of war. We must not be too severe."

Jack heard the Commander-in-Chief when he spoke these words.

"The man has a great heart in him, as every great man must," he wrote to his father. "I am beginning to love him. I can see that these thousands in the army are going to be bound to him by an affection like that of a son for a father. With men like Was.h.i.+ngton and Franklin to lead us, how can we fail?"

The next night Sir Henry Clinton got around the Americans and turned their left flank. Smallwood's command and that of Colonel Jack Irons were almost destroyed, twenty-two hundred having been killed or taken.

Jack had his left arm shot through and escaped only by the swift and effective use of his pistols and hanger, and by good luck, his horse having been "only slightly cut in the withers." The American line gave way. Its unseasoned troops fled into Brooklyn. There was the end of the island. They could go no farther without swimming. With a British fleet in the harbor under Admiral Lord Howe, the situation was desperate. Sir Henry had only to follow and pen them in and unlimber his guns. The surrender of more than half of Was.h.i.+ngton's army would have to follow. At headquarters, the most discerning minds saw that only a miracle could prevent it.

The miracle arrived. Next day a fog thicker than the darkness of a clouded night enveloped the island and lay upon the face of the waters.

Calmly, quickly Was.h.i.+ngton got ready to move his troops. That night, under the friendly cover of the fog, they were quietly taken across the East River, with a regiment of Marblehead sea dogs, under Colonel Glover, manning the boats. Fortunately, the British army had halted, waiting for clear weather.

3

For nearly two weeks Jack was nursing his wound in Was.h.i.+ngton's army hospital, which consisted of a cabin, a tent, a number of cow stables and an old shed on the heights of Harlem. Jack had lain in a stable.

Toward the end of his confinement, John Adams came to see him.

"Were you badly hurt ?" the great man asked.

"Scratched a little, but I'll be back in the service to-morrow," Jack replied.

"You do not look like yourself quite. I think that I will ask the Commander-in-Chief to let you go with me to Philadelphia. I have some business there and later Franklin and I are going to Staten Island to confer with Admiral Lord Howe. We are a pair of snappish old dogs and need a young man like you to look after us. You would only have to keep out of our quarrels, attend to our luggage and make some notes in the conference."

So it happened that Jack went to Philadelphia with Mr. Adams, and, after two days at the house of Doctor Franklin, set out with the two great men for the conference on Staten Island. He went in high hope that he was to witness the last scene of the war.

In Amboy he sent a letter to his father, which said:

"Mr. Adams is a blunt, outspoken man. If things do not go to his liking, he is quick to tell you. Doctor Franklin is humorous and polite, but firm as a G.o.d-placed mountain. You may put your shoulder against the mountain and push and think it is moving, but it isn't. He is established. He has found his proper bearings and is done with moving. These two great men differ in little matters. They had a curious quarrel the other evening. We had reached New Brunswick on our way north. The taverns were crowded. I ran from one to another trying to find entertainment for my distinguished friends. At last I found a small chamber with one bed in it and a single window. The bed nearly filled the room. No better accommodation was to be had. I had left them sitting on a bench in a little grove near the large hotel, with the luggage near them. When I returned they were having a hot argument over the origin of northeast storms, the Doctor a.s.serting that he had learned by experiment that they began in the southwest and proceeded in a north-easterly direction. I had to wait ten minutes for a chance to speak to them. Mr. Adams was hot faced, the Doctor calm and smiling.

I imparted the news.

"'G.o.d of Israel!' Mr. Adams exclaimed. 'Is it not enough that I have to agree with you? Must I also sleep with you?'

"'Sir, I hope that you must not, but if you must, I beg that you will sleep more gently than you talk,' said Franklin.

"I went with them to their quarters carrying the luggage. On the way Mr. Adams complained that he had picked up a flea somewhere.

"'The flea, sir, is a small animal, but a big fact,' said Franklin.

'You alarm me. Two large men and a flea will be apt to crowd our quarters.'

"In the room they argued with a depth of feeling which astonished me, as to whether the one window should be open or closed. Mr. Adams had closed it.

"'Please do not close the window,' said Franklin. 'We shall suffocate.'

"'Sir, I am an invalid and afraid of the night air,' said Adams rather testily.

"'The air of this room will be much worse for you than that out-of-doors,' Franklin retorted. He was then between the covers. 'I beg of you to open the window and get into bed and if I do not prove my case to your satisfaction, I will consent to its being closed.'

"I lay down on a straw filled mattress outside their door. I heard Mr.

Adams open the window and get into bed. Then Doctor Franklin began to expound his theory of colds. He declared that cold air never gave any one a cold; that respiration destroyed a gallon of air a minute and that all the air in the room would be consumed in an hour. He went on and on and long before he had finished his argument, Mr. Adams was snoring, convinced rather by the length than the cogency of the reasoning. Soon the two great men, whose fame may be said to fill the earth, were asleep in the same bed in that little box of a room and snoring in a way that suggested loud contention. I had to laugh as I listened. Mr. Adams would seem to have been defeated, for, by and by, I heard him muttering as he walked the floor."

Howe's barge met the party at Amboy and conveyed them to the landing near his headquarters. It was, however, a fruitless journey. Howe wished to negotiate on the old ground now abandoned forever. The people of America had spoken for independence--a new, irrevocable fact not to be put aside by amba.s.sadors. The colonies were lost. The concessions which the wise Franklin had so urgently recommended to the government of England, Howe seemed now inclined to offer, but they could not be entertained.

"Then my government can only maintain its dignity by fighting," said Howe.

"That is a mistaken notion," Franklin answered; "It will be much more dignified for your government to acknowledge its error than to persist in it."

"We shall fight," Howe declared.

"And you will have more fighting to do than you antic.i.p.ate," said Franklin. "Nature is our friend and ally. The Lord has prepared our defenses. They are the sea, the mountains, the forest and the character of our people. Consider what you have accomplished. At an expense of eight million pounds, you have killed about eight hundred Yankees. They have cost you ten thousand pounds a head. Meanwhile, at least a hundred thousand children have been born in America. There are the factors in your problem. How much time and money will be required for the job of killing all of us?"

The British Admiral ignored the query.

"My powers are limited," said he, "but I am authorized to grant pardons and in every way to exercise the King's paternal solicitude."

"Such an offer shows that your proud nation has no flattering opinion of us," Franklin answered. "We, who are the injured parties, have not the baseness to entertain it. You will forgive me for reminding you that the King's paternal solicitude has been rather trying. It has burned our defenseless towns in mid-winter; if has incited the savages to ma.s.sacre our farmers' in the back country; it has driven us to a declaration of independence. Britain and America are now distinct states. Peace can be considered only on that basis. You wish to prevent our trade from pa.s.sing into foreign channels. Let me remind you, also, that the profit of no trade can ever be equal to the expense of holding it with fleets and armies."

"On such a basis I am not empowered to treat with you," Howe answered.

"We shall immediately move against your army."

The conference ended. The amba.s.sadors and their secretary shook hands with the British Admiral.

"Mr. Irons, I have heard much of you," said the latter as he held Jack's hand. "You are deeply attached to a young lady whom I admire and whose father is my friend. I offer you a chance to leave this troubled land and go to London and marry and lead a peaceable, Christian life. You may keep your principles, if you wish, as I have no use for them. You will find sympathizers in England."

"Lord Howe, your kindness touches me," the young man answered. "What you propose is a great temptation. It is like Calypso's offer of immortal happiness to Ulysses. I love England. I love peace, and more than either, I love the young lady, but I couldn't go and keep my principles."

"Why not, sir?"

"Because we are all of a mind with our Mr. Patrick Henry. We put Liberty above happiness and even above life. So I must stay and help fight her battles, and when I say it I am grinding my own heart under my heel. Don't think harshly of me. I can not help it. The feeling is bred in my bones."

His Lords.h.i.+p smiled politely and bowed as the three men withdrew.

Franklin took the hand of the young man and pressed it silently as they were leaving the small house in which Howe had established himself.

Jack, who had been taking notes of the fruitless talk of these great men, was sorely disappointed. He could see no prospect now of peace.

"My hopes are burned to the ground," he said to Doctor Franklin.

"It is a time of sacrifice," the good man answered. "You have the invincible spirit that looks into the future and gives all it has. You are America."

"I have been thinking too much of myself," Jack answered. "Now I am ready to lay down my life in this great cause of ours."

"Boy, I like you," said Mr. Adams. "I have arranged to have you safely conveyed to New York. There an orderly will meet and conduct you to our headquarters."

"Thank you, sir," Jack replied. Turning to Doctor Franklin, he added: