Jack, who had been taking notes of the fruitless talk of these great men, was sorely disappointed. He could see no prospect now of peace.
"My hopes are burned to the ground," he said to Doctor Franklin.
"It is a time of sacrifice," the good man answered. "You have the invincible spirit that looks into the future and gives all it has. You are America."
"I have been thinking too much of myself," Jack answered. "Now I am ready to lay down my life in this great cause of ours."
"Boy, I like you," said Mr. Adams. "I have arranged to have you safely conveyed to New York. There an orderly will meet and conduct you to our headquarters."
"Thank you, sir," Jack replied. Turning to Doctor Franklin, he added:
"One remark of yours to Lord Howe impressed me. You said that Nature was our friend and ally. It put me in mind of the fog that helped us out of Brooklyn and of a little adventure of mine."
Then he told the story of the spider's web.
"I repeat that all Nature is with us," said Franklin. "It was a sense of injustice in human nature that sent us across the great barrier of the sea into conditions where only the strong could survive. Here we have raised up a sturdy people with three thousand miles of water between them and tyranny. Armies can not cross it and succeed long in a hostile land. They are too far from home. The expense of transporting and maintaining them will bleed our enemies until they are spent. The British King is powerful, but now he has picked a quarrel with Almighty God, and it will go hard with him."