“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 ambassadors.  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 anticipate,” 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.”