"In America your harbors are blocked up, your cities fall one after another; fortress after fortress, battle after battle is lost. A British army, after having passed unmolested through a vast extent of country, have possessed themselves of the Capital of America. How unequal the contest! How fruitless the expense of blood! Under so many discouraging circumstances, can virtue, can honor, can the love of your country prompt you to proceed? Humanity itself, and sure humanity is no stranger to your breast, calls upon you to desist. Your army must perish for want of common necessaries or thousands of innocent families must perish to support them; wherever they encamp, the country must be impoverished; wherever they march, the troops of Britain will pursue, and must complete the destruction which America herself has begun. Perhaps it may be said, it is better to die than to be made slaves. This, indeed, is a splendid maxim in theory, and perhaps in some instances may be found experimentally true; but when there is the least probability of a happy accommodation, surely, wisdom and humanity call for some sacrifices to be made to prevent inevitable destruction. You well know there is but one invincible bar to such an accommodation; could this be removed, other obstacles might readily be removed. It is to you and you alone your bleeding country looks and calls aloud for this sacrifice. Your arm alone has strength sufficient to remove this bar. May Heaven inspire you with this glorious resolution of exerting your strength at this crisis, and immortalizing yourself as friend and guardian to your country! Your penetrating eye needs not more explicit language to discern my meaning. With that prudence and delicacy, therefore, of which I know you possessed, represent to Congress the indispensable necessity of rescinding the hasty and ill-advised declaration of independence. Recommend, and you have an undoubted right to recommend, an immediate cessation of hostilities. Let the controversy be taken up where that declaration left it, and where Lord Howe certainly expected to find it left. Let men of clear and impartial characters, in or out of Congress, liberal in their sentiments, heretofore independent in their fortunes--and some such may be found in America--be appointed to confer with His Majesty's Commissioners. Let them, if they please, propose some well-digested constitutional plan to lay before them at the commencement of the negotiation. When they have gone thus far I am confident the usual happy consequences will ensue--unanimity will immediately take place through the different provinces, thousands who are now ardently wishing and praying for such a measure will step forth and declare themselves the zealous advocates for constitutional liberty, and millions will bless the hero that left the field of war to decide this most important contest with the weapons of wisdom and humanity.