The message caused some embarrassment in Congress. To accede to the interview might seem to waive the question of independence; to decline it was to shut the door on all hope of conciliation, and might alienate the co-operation of some worthy whigs who still clung to that hope. After much debate, Congress, on the 5th September, replied, that, being the representatives of the free and independent States of America, they could not send any members to confer with his lordship in their private characters, but that, ever desirous of establishing peace on reasonable terms, they would send a committee of their body to ascertain what authority he had to treat with persons authorized by Congress, and what propositions he had to offer. A committee was chosen on the 6th of September, composed of John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Doctor Franklin. The latter, in the preceding year, during his residence in England, had become acquainted with Lord Howe, at the house of his lordship’s sister, the Honorable Mrs. Howe, and they had held frequent conversations on the subject of American affairs, in the course of which, his lordship had intimated the possibility of his being sent commissioner to settle the differences in America. Franklin had recently adverted to this in a letter to Lord Howe. “Your lordship may possibly remember the tears of joy that wet my cheek, when, at your good sister’s in London, you gave me expectations that a reconciliation might soon take place. I had the misfortune to find those expectations disappointed. * * * * * “The well-founded esteem, and, permit me to say, affection, which I shall always have for your lordship, makes it painful for me to see you engaged in conducting a war, the great ground of which, as expressed in your letter, is ’the necessity of preventing the American trade from passing into foreign channels.’ * * * I know your great motive in coming hither, was the hope of being instrumental in a reconciliation; and I believe that when you find _that_ impossible on any terms given to you to propose, you will relinquish so odious a command, and return to a more honorable private station.” “I can have no difficulty to acknowledge,” replied Lord Howe, “that the powers I am invested with were never calculated to negotiate a reunion with America, under any other description than as subject to the crown of Great Britain. But I do esteem these powers competent, not only to confer and negotiate with any gentlemen of influence in the colonies upon the terms, but also to effect a lasting peace and reunion between the two countries, were the tempers of the colonies such as professed in the last petition of Congress to the king.”[107]