Admiral Lord Richard Howe, 50 years old, found himself in an awkward position.

Howe commanded the Royal fleet even then investing Manhattan Island following the defeat of the Continental Army at Brooklyn Heights earlier in September. Nearly 400 ships of various sizes sailed under his command—the largest fleet England had thus far assembled.

Yet despite that military might, Howe had an additional role to fulfill. His Majesty, King George III, had appointed him as one of two “peace commissioners” charged with negotiating terms with the Americans. The other peace commissioner was Howe’s brother, General William Howe, commander of the Royal army. The makers of war were tasked with negotiating a peace.

Complicating matters even more, the brothers were not empowered to do much actual negotiating. Colonists first had to renounce their independence before any terms for a restored peace could be discussed. Pardons could then be liberally granted, although Howe did have a blacklist, a list of “Rebell[s] expressly excepted from Pardon.”

Lord Howe generally felt sympathetic toward the former colonies, and when he dispatched the paroled American general John Sullivan to Philadelphia with an overture for peace, Howe genuinely hoped for reconciliation.

That overture came from a position of strength. The recent British victory at Brooklyn Heights—the battle of Long Island—had demonstrated British military might, and he hoped it would jolt some sense into the members of the Continental Congress. Of course, officially, he was not authorized to think of them that way because doing so would validate their legitimacy.

Congress’s peace delegation—John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Edward Rutelidge—arrived in Perth Amboy on September 10. The following morning, they set out to meet Howe at the Christopher Billopp house, which Howe had converted to his headquarters. A barge arrived on the Jersey shore to ferry the men over to Staten Island while a member of Howe’s staff offered to stay behind to act as a hostage. The delegates insisted such an insurance policy would not be necessary. Whatever animosity existed between the two countries, the delegates trusted Howe as a man of honor. Howe recognized their gesture of respect with magnanimity.

Arriving at the house, Adams, Franklin, and Rutledge passed through “Lines of Guards of Grenadiers, looking as fierce as ten furies, and making all the Grimaces and Gestures and motions of their Musquets with Bayonets fixed,” Adams recounted. The house was “as dirty as a stable,” although Howe’s staff did their best to spruce up the house “by spreading a Carpet of Moss and green Spriggs from Bushes and Shrubbs . . . till he had made it not only wholesome but romantically elegant.”[1]

Howe regretted that he could not welcome his guests “as Members of Congress, or public Characters, but only as private Persons and British Subjects.”

“Your Lordship may consider me, in what light you please,” Adams retorted; “and indeed I should be willing to consider myself, for a few moments, in any Character which would be agreeable to your Lordship, except that of a British Subject.” 

Howe turned to Franklin and Rutledge. “Mr. Adams is a decided Character,” the admiral said. Adams thought he detected a sad look on Howe’s face and only much later did he understand why: Adams’s name was among those on the blacklist. Even if negotiations succeeded, there would be no peace for Adams.

The meeting lasted about three hours and, the guests enjoyed “good Claret, good bread, Cold Ham, Tongues, and Mutton.” Accounts suggest the conversation was cordial enough. Franklin knew Howe from his own time in London, where he spent many long hours playing chess with Howe’s sister, Caroline. “Dr. Franklin [addressed Howe] with an easy Air and a collected Countenance, a Bow, a Smile and all that Naivetee which sometimes appeared in his Conversation and is often observed in his Writings,” Adams noted.

Howe admitted his sympathies toward the former colonies, although he made it clear he was ready to do his duty to the king. “If America should fail,” Howe added, “I should feel and lament it like the loss of a brother.”

“My Lord,” Franklin replied, “we will do our utmost endeavors to save your Lordship that mortification.”

The American delegates asked a few questions and listened to what Howe had to say, but it soon became apparent that Howe had little real authority to decide anything—and he couldn’t even do that until the colonists repealed their declaration of independence, which of course they had no intention of doing. “America is to expect nothing but total unconditional submission,” the delegates would report back in Philadelphia.

In the end, nothing came of the conversation. “His Lordship appeared to feel this, with more Sensibility, than I could expect,” a surprised Adams admitted.

“[S]orry to find that no Accommodation was like to take place,” Howe apologized for putting the three men through “the trouble of coming so far, to so little purpose.”[2]

“They met, they talked, they parted,” Howe’s secretary recounted. “And now nothing remains but to fight it out against a Set of the most determined Hypocrites & Demagogues. . . .”

And fight it out, they would. The Howe brothers resumed offensive operations only four days later. The battle of Manhattan awaited.

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[1] John Adams’s account of the meeting comes from “[Tuesday. September 17th. 1776.],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/01-03-02-0016-0189. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. 3, Diary, 1782–1804; Autobiography, Part One to October 1776, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. 420–431.]

[2] “Lord Howe’s Conference with the Committee of Congress, 11 September 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0358. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 22, March 23, 1775, through October 27, 1776, ed. William B. Willcox. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 598–605.], accessed on 16 November 2025.