not speak
their language_!" The individuals of the navy of England, have pretty
correct ideas of us; but the soldiery of England have betrayed their
ignorance in a manner that is astonishing, and some times truly
laughable, even among their officers, who have taken prisoners. To
this ignorance of free and happy America, and to the very generally
diffused blessings of a respectable education, which we all enjoy, is
to be attributed the base treatment we have experienced in some
periods of our painful captivity. Who could have entertained any
respect, or good opinion of a set of miserable looking, half naked
dirty men, such as we all were when we arrived in the different ships
from America? Our own parents, our brothers and sisters, would not
have recognized us as their relatives. The soldiers taken under
Boestler, were the verriest looking vagabonds I ever saw. They
resembled more the idea I have formed of the lowest tenants of St.
Giles', than American citizens, born and bred up in a sort of Indian
freedom, and living all their lives in plenty, and never knowing,
until they came into the hands of the English, what it was to be
pinched for food, or to be infested by vermin. This short, severe, and
for America, _most glorious war_, has given all ranks of the British
nation more correct ideas of that people, who have vanquished them in
every contest, the ill-omened frigate Chesapeake alone excepted.
During this short war, the British have learnt this important truth,
that the Americans are a brave and skilful people, who, though they
appear to differ among themselves, _are all united against any attack
from the English_; and on our side we have learnt, that to carry on a
war, as we have done, is _pretty expensive_.

The surgeon of this ship, who is a clever Scotchman, speaks of the
English nation as in a state of starvation in the midst of her great
power, and abounding wealth, and matchless glory; for the late capture
of Paris, _by the English_, with a _trifling_ assistance of the
allies, has absolutely intoxicated the whole nation, so that every man
of them talks as if he were drunk. He told me, "that although the ship
carpenters, at Chatham, received two guineas a week, (which, by the
way, is not so much as our carpenters receive in America) they were
always poor, and could lay up nothing against the accidents of
sickness; but that when such misfortunes came upon them, they, in
common with the manufacturers of England,