ifficult to keep their faith alive during the weary month of October
while they waited for the King's reply. Mr. Chase, although he had
"not absolutely discarded every glimpse of a hope of reconciliation,"
admitted that "the prospect was gloomy." Mr. Zubly assured Congress that
he "did hope for a reconciliation and that this winter may bring it";
and he added, as if justifying himself against sceptical shrugs of
shoulders, "I may enjoy my hopes for reconciliation; others may enjoy
theirs that none will take place." It might almost seem that the idea
of reconciliation, in this October of 1775, was a vanishing image to be
enjoyed retrospectively rather than anything substantial to build upon
for the future. This it was, perhaps, that gave especial point to Mr.
Zubly's oft-repeated assertion that Congress must speedily obtain one
of two things--"a reconciliation with Great Britain, or the means of
carrying on the war."

Reconciliation OR war! This was surely a new antithesis. Had not arms
been taken up for the purpose precisely of disposing their adversaries
"to reconciliation on reasonable terms"? Does Mr. Zubly mean to say then
that war is an alternative to reconciliation--an alternative which
will lead the colonies away from compromise towards that which all
have professed not to desire? Is Mr. Zubly hinting at independence even
before the King has replied to the petition? No. This is not what Mr.
Zubly meant. What he had in the back of his mind, and what the Congress
was coming to have in the back of its mind, if one may judge from the
abbreviated notes which John Adams took of the debates in the fall of
1775, was that if the colonies could not obtain reconciliation by means
of the non-intercourse measures very soon--this very winter as Mr.
Zubly hoped--they would have to rely for reconciliation upon a vigorous
prosecution of the war; in which case the non-intercourse measures were
likely to prove an obstacle rather than an advantage, since they would
make it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain the "means of carrying
on the war."

The non-intercourse measures had been designed to obtain conciliation
by forcing Great Britain to make concessions; but if Great Britain would
make no concessions, then the non-intercourse measures, by destroying
the trade and prosperity of the colonies, would have no other effect
than to bring about conciliation by forcing the colonies to make
concessions themselves. This was not the ki