The sailor arrived nine days later.

Lord Howe was wont to regret that he had not arrived a little earlier, since the concessions which he had to offer might have averted the Declaration of Independence.

In truth, however, he had little to offer.

Humor and imagination are useful gifts in carrying on human affairs, but George III had neither.

He saw no lack of humor in now once more offering full and free pardon to a repentant Washington and his comrades, though John Adams was excepted by name * in repudiating the right to exist of the Congress at Philadelphia, and in refusing to recognize the military rank of the rebel general whom it had named: he was to be addressed in civilian style as "George Washington Esq." The King and his ministers had no imagination to call up the picture of high-hearted men fighting for rights which they held dear.
* Trevelyan, "American Revolution", Part II, vol.I (New Ed., vol.II), 261.
Lord Howe went so far as to address a letter to "George Washington Esq.
&c.