he cause of liberty and
their country, who, by the fortune of war have fallen into your hands,
have been thrown indiscriminately into a common jail, appropriated to
felons; that no consideration has been had for those of the most
respectable rank, when languishing with wounds and sickness, and that
some have been amputated in this unworthy situation.... The obligations
arising from the rights of humanity and claims of rank are universally
binding and extensive, except in case of retaliation. These, I should
have hoped, would have dictated a more tender treatment of those
individuals whom chance or war had put in your power.... My duty now
makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I shall regulate
all my conduct towards those gentlemen who are, or may be, in our
possession, exactly by the rule you shall observe toward those of ours
now in your custody.

"If severity and hardships mark the line of your conduct, painful as it
may be to me, your prisoners will feel its effects. But if kindness and
humanity are shown to us, I shall with pleasure consider those in our
hands only as unfortunate, and they shall receive from me that treatment
to which the unfortunate are ever entitled."

The reply of General Gage was characteristic of a conceited, ambitious,
and domineering officer of the king, and Washington closed his reply to
it with these words:

"I shall now, sir, close my correspondence with you, perhaps forever. If
your officers, our prisoners, receive a treatment from me different from
that which I wished to show them, they and you will remember the
occasion of it."

Subsequently, Washington ordered British officers at Watertown and Cape
Ann, who were at large on parole, to be confined in the jail at
Northampton, explaining to them that it was not agreeable to his
feelings of humanity, but according to the treatment of Americans whom
the officers of the crown held as prisoners. But he could not tolerate
even this mild form of retaliation, and therefore in a short time he
revoked the order, and the prisoners were at large again.

"I was never more distressed in mind than I am now," remarked Washington
to a member of his staff.

"Why so?"

"Within a few days this army will be reduced to less than ten thousand
men by the expiration of enlistments," answered Washington; "and when we
can ever attack Boston is a problem. For six months I have been waiting
for powder, fire-arms, recruits, and what-not; an