1776.

tied down by his inftructions from parting with him up- CHAP. on any terms, if he fhould chance to fall into his power. XIV. Some animofities had also been supposed to exift between this gentleman and several officers in the British army, as well as fome perfons in high office at court, all which produced a degree of exultation on the part of the conquerors very unworthy of the character they bore.

As general Washington had not at this time any prifoner of equal rank with general Lee, he offered fix fieldofficers in exchange, hoping that the number would balance the disparity of rank; or, if this should not be accepted, he required that the general fhould be treated in a manner fuitable to his rank, according to the practice established among civilized nations, and the example already fet by the Americans, in treating the British officers who had fallen into their hands. To this, however, it was replied, that mr. Lee being a deferter from the British fervice, was not to be confidered as a prifoner of war, nor did he come at all within the cartel. A dispute now took place, whether general Lee, who had refigned his half-pay in the beginning of the war, could be confidered as a deferter? or, whether he could with juftice be excluded from the benefits of a cartel, at the formation of which no exception of perfons had been mentioned? The affirmative in thefe queftions, which was taken by the British general, excited not only the higheft indignation in the breaft of general Washington himfelf, but produced very difagreeable confequences to the British prifoners; as congrefs now declared, that the future treatment of thefe prifoners fhould depend entirely on that which neral Lee experienced.

ge

That unfortunate officer, in the mean time, was confined in the closest manner, and guarded with all that watchful jealoufy which attends the greatest state-criminals in the most perilous times. This feverity was retaliated on colonel Campbell, who had been taken by a mistake in entering the harbour of Boston after it was in the hands of the provincials, and had till now experienced every kind of humanity at the hands of the captors. No fooner, however, did the news of general Lee's clofe confinement arrive, than he was thrown into a dungeon, and treated otherwife with the utmoft rigour. Thofe officers alfo, who had been taken prifoners by the fouthern colonifts, though treated with lefs feverity, were abridged of their parle liberty, and deprived of other comforts which they had hitherto enjoyed.

VOL. V.

Q2

1776. Refolute

behaviour

grefs.

CHAP. Thus the congrefs in this inftance manifested a spirit as XIV. yet undaunted by adverfity, and kept up the dignity of the character they had affumed of fovereigns of an indepen. dent empire. In other refpects, their conduct was equally firm and unfhaken; nor did the great body of the peoof the con- ple ever manifeft any thing like an inclination to yield, or even to acknowledge that the enemy had got any ad vantage over them. The gafconades of the British foldiers were retorted by others on the part of the provincials, and the prowess and abilities of general Washington extolled beyond measure. Some plots in favour of the royal caufe had, indeed, been formed before the arrival of the fleet and navy; but the ease with which they were defeated, manifested at once the extreme weakness of government intereft, and the extreme imprudence of the infurgents in attempting schemes fo far beyond their power. Some few executions, however, took place on this account; great numbers were confined; and many, through fear, abandoned their houfes, and were purfued as outlaws and enemies to their country, and their estates feized and forfeited. The greateft defection happened in Philadelphia itself, where the difcontents arofe at last to. fuch an height, that general Washington, weak as he was, found it neceffary to detach three regiments to quiet them, which, however, perfectly well answered the purpose, and enabled him to direct his whole attention towards the reparation of his affairs.

The congrefs now, fenfible that all was at ftake, refolved to use their utmost endeavours in raising a new force capable of oppofing the royal army with fome effect; and, at the fame time, perceiving the difadvantages arifing: from the liberty granted to the foldiers of returning to their families at the end of the year, determined now to cause them to enlift on fome other terms. About the middle of September they had iffued orders for the raifing of eighty-eight battalions, the foldiers to be bound to ferve during the continuance of the war. The number of battalions to be thus raised was in proportion to the ftrength of the province. Maffachusetts-Bay and Virginia were to furnish fifteen battalions; Pennsylvania, twelve; North- Carolina nine; Connecticut and Maryland eight; and, on account of the fituation of New-York. and the Jerfeys, each of these provinces was rated only at four. A bounty of twenty dollars was offered to each man at the time of enlifting; lands were to be allotted at the end of the war to the furvivors, and to the reprefentatives of all who were flain in action, in different stated

1

XIV.

proportions, from 500 acres, the allotment of a colonel, CHAP, to 150, that of an enfign; the private men, and non-commiffioned officers, to have roo acres each; and to prevent thefe valuable gifts from being fquandered through the 1776. improvidence of the foldiers, the lands were rendered unalienable during the war; no affignment or transfer being admitted at the conclufion.

-The congrefs had formerly, as an encouragement to' their forces, decreed, that all officers, foldiers, and feamen, who were, or might be disabled in action, should receive, during life, one half of the monthly pay to which they were entitled by their rank at the time they received their misfortune. Notwithstanding all thefe encouragements, however, the condition of ferving for an indefinite term, during the war, was fo far from being agreeable, that in the month of November it was found neceffary to admit another mode of enliftment, by restricting the term to the space of three years; the foldiers receiving the fame bounty as in the former cafe, but being cut out of any allotment in lands.

To give encouragement to the people in general who, however averse to British government, seemed very little inclined to face their forces in the field, a manifetto was publifhed by congrefs, dated December 10, addreffed Dec. 10. more particularly to the inhabitants of Pennsylvania. In this, every poffible argument was used to promote the formation of the new army, on which every thing depen ded; and to remove that defpondency, of which fome symptoms feemed already to appear, and which, if once fuffered to prevail, muft certainly overthrow the cause entirely.

For thefe purposes, they enumerated the causes of the troubles; the fuppofed grievances they had endured; the late oppreffive laws paffed against them; dwelt much on the contempt with which all their petitions and applications had been treated; and, to fhew that no alternative but war, or a tame refignation of all that could be dear to mankind, remained, they afferted, that even the boafted commiffioners for giving peace to America had not offered, nor yet offer, any terms, but pardon upon abfolute fubmiffion. From thence they deduced the neceffity of the act of independency, afferting, that it would have been impoffible for them to have defended their rights against fo powerful an aggreffor, aided by large armies of foreign mercenaries, or to have obtained that affiftance from other ftates which was abfolutely neceffary to their prefervation, hilft they acknowledged the fovereignty, and confessed

1776.

CHAP. themselves the fubjects of that power against which they XIV, had taken up arms, and were engaged in fo cruel a wars They boafted of the fuccefs that had in general atten ded their caufe and exertions; contending, that the pre fent ftate of weakness and danger did not proceed from any capital lofs, defeat, or from any defect of valour in their troops, but merely from the expiration of the term: of those fhort enliftments, which had in the beginning been adopted from an attention to the ease of the people. They affured them, that foreign ftates had already rendered them effential services, and had given them the most pofitive promises of further aid; and they endeavoured to excite the indignation and animofity of the people, by expatiating on the unrelenting, cruel, and inhuman manner in which, they faid, the war was carried on, not only by the auxiliaries, but even by the British forces them felves.

In the mean time, the congrefs proceeded to, regulate the conftitution of their new empire, as if no enemy had been in the country, nor the least misfortune befallen them. New articles of confederation and perpetual union, not greatly differing from thofe formerly related, werel Oct. 4. published on the 4th of October, after having been moft deliberately confidered, line by line, though about the clofe of the year they were obliged to confult their own fafety, by retiring to Baltimore in Maryland, on account of the danger which threatened Philadelphia.

Petition,

it

The fucceffes, however, which had attended the British from New- arms during this campaign, had not been altogether with York and out fome appearance of that fubmiffion which was held Queen's out as the main end of the warfare. About a month af county. ter the taking of New-York, the inhabitants of that city and ifland prefented a petition to lord Howe, and his bro ther the general, commiffioners for restoring peace to the colonies, figned by Daniel Horfemanden, Oliver de Lancey, and 946 others, declaring their allegiance, and theirs acknowledgment of the conflitutional fupremacy of Great Britain over the colonies; and praying that, in confe quence of the former declarations by the commiffioners, that city and country might be restored to his majesty's peace and protection. Another was prefented from the inhabitants of, Queen's county in Long Island, in which they were equally forward to acknowledge what they called the conftitutional authority of the mother-country; but in neither of them was the least mention made, of the authority of parliament, or even of the unconditional fubmillion fo much infifted upon, For these reasons, in all

1

probability, it was, that no notice was taken of thefe peti- CHAP. tions; nor were the inhabitants 'reftored to the rights XIV. and privileges they had reason to expect, in consequence m of the declarations of the commiffioners on their first ar- 1776. rival, even though the inhabitants of Queen's county had raised a confiderable body of forces for the king's fervice,' a ftrong corps of militia for the defence of the country, and given every other testimony of loyalty that could be

wifhed.

- Towards the end of December, matters began to take a new and very unexpected turn in favour of the provincials; the chief reafon of which feems to have been, the extreme malignity with which the royal army was regarded in the country where they had taken up their refidence. Complaints of the cruelties they exercifed were everywhere published, and pamphlets stuffed with nothing else than details of rapes, cruelty, rapine, and murder. That fuch accounts were greatly exaggerated there can be no reafon to doubt; as, on the other hand, it is equally certain, that they must have had fome foundation in truth. In fuch publications, though the British troops were far from escaping cenfure, the Heffians were principally ftigmatized. From the beginning of the campaign, indeed, the most violent antipathy had taken place betwixt the Heffians and Americans. The latter, contending, as they thought, for freedom, and filled with the notions of the natural rights of mankind, beheld, with the utmost abhorrence, a people whom they regarded as the meaneft slaves, refigning, for a miferable pittance, all their faculties to the will of a petty defpot, and engaging in a domeRic quarrel in which they had neither intereft nor concern; quitting their own homes; and, not without danger even from the length of the voyage, paffing an immenfe ocean to butcher those who never did them any harm'; nay, thofe who had for a century past afforded an afylum to multitudes of their countrymen, harraffed and oppreffed by a tyranny fimilar to that under which thefe were now acting, and whom they would not hesitate to' treat in the fame manner they now did the British Americans. On the other hand, the Heffians, naturally fierce and cruel, and ignorant of any rights but those of defpotifm, were incapable of diftinguishing betwixt the ravaging an enemy's country, and the reduction of a rebellious people to a due obedience to their lawful fovereign. It was even faid, that in order to reconcile these barbarians to the undertaking of fuch a long and dangerous voyage, they had been promised large portions of the lands they