de, and failed; in every town,
nay, every cottage, in the Jerseys, where your arms have been, is
a testimony against you. How you may rest under this sacrifice of
character I know not; but this I know, that you sleep and rise with the
daily curses of thousands upon you; perhaps the misery which the Tories
have suffered by your proffered mercy may give them some claim to their
country's pity, and be in the end the best favor you could show them.
* As some people may doubt the truth of such wanton destruction, I
think it necessary to inform them that one of the people called Quakers,
who lives at Trenton, gave me this information at the house of Mr.
Michael Hutchinson, (one of the same profession,) who lives near Trenton
ferry on the Pennsylvania side, Mr. Hutchinson being present.
In a folio general-order book belonging to Col. Rhal's battalion, taken
at Trenton, and now in the possession of the council of safety for
this state, the following barbarous order is frequently repeated, "His
excellency the Commander-in-Chief orders, that all inhabitants who
shall be found with arms, not having an officer with them, shall be
immediately taken and hung up." How many you may thus have privately
sacrificed, we know not, and the account can only be settled in another
world. Your treatment of prisoners, in order to distress them to enlist
in your infernal service, is not to be equalled by any instance in
Europe. Yet this is the humane Lord Howe and his brother, whom the
Tories and their three-quarter kindred, the Quakers, or some of them at
least, have been holding up for patterns of justice and mercy!
A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men; and whoever
will be at the pains of examining strictly into things, will find that
one and the same spirit of oppression and impiety, more or less,
governs through your whole party in both countries: not many days ago,
I accidentally fell in company with a person of this city noted for
espousing your cause, and on my remarking to him, "that it appeared
clear to me, by the late providential turn of affairs, that God Almighty
was visibly on our side," he replied, "We care nothing for that you may
have Him, and welcome; if we have but enough of the devil on our side,
we shall do." However carelessly this might be spoken, matters not, 'tis
still the insensible principle that directs all your conduct and will at
last most assuredly deceive and ruin you.
If ever a n
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