The thoughtful reader will find these quotations to be very suggestive of some future offensive action on the part of Washington whenever the British might be shut up in winter quarters; and the reply of Congress, whereby they authorize him “not to retain New York longer than he thought proper for the public service,” was accompanied by the following _Resolution_: “That General Washington be acquainted that Congress would have special care taken, in case he should find it necessary to quit New York, that no damage be done to the said city by his troops, on their leaving it; the Congress having no doubt of their being able to recover the same, though the enemy should, for a time, have possession of it.” The experience of the Continental army before Boston was now repeated. New recruits came in daily, to fill the places made vacant by expiring enlistments; but again the army seemed to be “fast wasting away.” The interval is significant because of another effort on the part of General Howe and his brother, Admiral Howe, special commissioners, to settle the controversy upon terms alike satisfactory to the American people and the British crown; but John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Benjamin Franklin, commissioners appointed by Congress, insisted first upon Independence, and a subsequent alliance between the two nations as friendly powers. This ended the negotiations. Such a settlement, if it had been realized, might have imparted to Great Britain even a prouder destiny than the succeeding century developed. At that juncture of affairs, however, and as a key to General Howe’s importunity in securing at least “a suspension of hostilities,” he was urging upon the British Government, with the same pertinacity as Washington besought Congress, to increase his army. His figures were large, and worthy of notice. He wanted ten thousand men for the occupation of Newport, R.I., that he might threaten Boston, and make incursions into Connecticut. He demanded for the garrison of New York twenty thousand men; of which number, seventeen thousand should be available for field service. He asked for ten thousand more, for operations into New Jersey, where Washington had established a general Camp of Instruction for all troops arriving from the south; and still another ten thousand for operations in the Southern Colonies. It is not improbable that much of General Howe’s tardiness in following up temporary success, in all his subsequent campaigns, was based upon the conviction—embodied in these enormous requisitions for troops—that the war had already assumed a character of very grave importance and a corresponding uncertainty of the result.