August was drawing to a close when the two armies were in a position to begin fighting.  The British, who had originally camped upon Staten Island where Nature provided them with a shelter from attack, had now moved across the bay to Long Island.  There General Sullivan, having lost eleven or twelve hundred men, was caught between two fires and compelled to surrender with the two thousand or more of his army which remained after the attack of the British.  Washington watched the disaster from Brooklyn, but was unable to detach any regiments to bring aid to Sullivan, as it now became clear to him that his whole army on Long Island might easily be cut off.  He decided to retreat from the island.  This he did on August 29th, having commandeered every boat that he could find.  He ferried his entire force across to the New York side with such secrecy and silence that the British did not notice that they were gone.  A heavy fog, which settled over the water during the night, greatly aided the adventure.  The result of the Battle of Long Island gave the British great exultation and correspondingly depressed the Americans.  On the preceding fourth of July they had declared their Independence; they were no longer Colonies but independent States bound together by a common interest.  They felt all the more keenly that in this first battle after their Independence they should be so ignominiously defeated.  They might have taken much comfort in the thought that had Howe surprised them on their midnight retreat across the river, he might have captured most of the American army and probably have ended the war.  Washington’s disaster sprang not from his incompetence, but from his inadequate resources.  The British outnumbered him more than two to one and they had control of the water; an advantage which he could not offset.  One important fact should not be forgotten:  New York, both City and State, had been notoriously Loyalist—­that is, pro-British—­ever since the troubles between the Colonists and the British grew angry.  Governor Tryon, the Governor of the State, made no secret of his British preferences; indeed, they were not preferences at all, but downright British acts.

Having won the Battle of Long Island, Lord Howe thought the time favorable for acting in his capacity as a peacemaker, because he had come over with authority to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the Colonists’ quarrel.  He appealed, therefore, to the Congress of Philadelphia, which appointed a committee of three—­Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge to confer with Lord Howe.  The conference, which exhibited the shrewd quality of John Adams and of Franklin, the politeness of Rutledge, and the studied urbanity of Lord Howe, simply showed that there was no common ground on which they could come to an agreement.  The American Commissioners returned to Philadelphia and Lord Howe to New York City and there were no further attempts at peacemaking.