A number of other Lockeans and Locker Room readers already have read David McCullough’s 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 2005), so this entry might ring a few bells.
As we mark the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, few of us are likely to think about another interesting anniversary.
September 11 will mark the 230th anniversary of a meeting involving Ben Franklin, John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and the British Admiral Richard Howe (Lord Howe). The Continental Congress in Philadelphia sent the three-man delegation to discuss Howe’s peace overtures. Little more than two months after the treasonous Declaration of Independence, Washington had been humiliated in the battle of Brooklyn and America’s fate was far from certain.
The Staten Island meeting lasted several hours, during which Lord Howe did most of the talking. “It is desirable to put a stop to these ruinous extremities, as well for the sake of our country as yours,” said the resplendently uniformed admiral. Was there no way of “treading back this step of independency?” There was not, he was told, and the meeting came to nothing, as expected.
I’ve seen no evidence of any great oratory emanating from this meeting, so its significance probably warrants the solitary paragraph listed above. But we ought to be proud that the Founders turned down this expedient opportunity to repent and rejoin the British empire.
On a much lighter note, I found some humor among McCullough’s weighty discussion. Because of the style of print used for Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis, his immortal opening line seems to say: “These are the times that try men’s fouls.”
