have disclosed, and which the tools of despot- | binding and extensive, except in case of retaliaism would extinguish through the whole crea- tion. These, I should have hoped, would have tion. To co-operate with this design, and to dictated a more tender treatment of those infrustrate those cruel and perfidious schemes, dividuals, whom chance or war had put in your which would deluge our frontiers with the power. Nor can I forbear suggesting its fatal blood of women and children, I have detached tendency to widen that unhappy breach, which colonel Arnold into your country, with a part of you, and those ministers under whom you act, the army under my command. I have enjoined | have repeatedly declared you wished to see forupon him, and I am certain that he will conever closed. sider himself, and act as in the country of his patrons and best friends. Necessaries and accommodations of every kind which you may furnish, he will thankfully receive and render the full value. I invite you therefore as friends and brethren, to provide him with such supplies as your country affords; and I pledge myself If severity and hardship mark the line of not only for your safety and security, but for your conduct (painful as it may be to me) your an ample compensation. Let no man desert prisoners will feel its effect; but if kindness his habitation-let no one flee as before an and humanity are shown to ours, I shall, with enemy. The cause of America, and of liberty, pleasure, consider those in our hands only as is the cause of every virtuous American citi- unfortunate, and they shall receive from me zen; whatever may be his religion or his that treatment to which the unfortunate are descent, the United Colonies know no distinc- | ever entitled. My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you, that, for the future, I shall regulate my conduct towards those gentlemen of your army, who are, or may be in our possession, exactly by the rule you shall observe towards those of ours who may be in your custody. ANSWER OF GENERAL GAGE. BOSTON, August 13, 1775. Sir-To the glory of civilized nations, humanity and war have been compatible; and compassion to the subdued is become almost a general system. Britons, ever pre-eminent in mercy, have outgone common examples, and overlooked the criminal in the captive. Upon these principles, your prisoners, whose lives, by the laws of the land, are destined to the cord, have hitherto been treated with care and kindness, and more comfortably lodged, than the king's troops, in the hospitals; indiscriminately, it is true, for I acknowledge no rank that is not derived from the king. My mtelligence from your army would justify severe recrimination. I understand there are some of the king's faithful subjects, taken sometime since by the rebels, laboring like negro slaves, to gain their daily subsistence, or reduced to the wretched alternative, to perish by famine or take arms against their king and country. Those, who have made the treatment of the prisoners in my hands, or of your other friends in Boston, a pretence for such measures, found barbarity upon falsehood. I would willingly hope, sir, that the sentiments of liberality, which I have always believed you to possess, will be exerted to correct these misdoings. Be temperate in political disquisitions; give free operation to truth, and punish those who deceive and misrepresent; and not | reply. I have taken time, sir, to make a strict only the effects, but the causes of this unhappy enquiry, and find it has not the least foundation conflict will soon be removed. in truth. Not only your officers and soldiers have been treated with a tenderness due to fellow citizens and brethren, but even those execrable parricides, whose councils and aid have deluged their country with blood, have been protected from the fury of a justly enraged people. Far from compelling or permit Should those, under whose usurped authority you act, control such a disposition, and dare to call severity retaliation, to God, who knows all hearts, be the appeal for the dreadful consequences. I trust that British soldiers, asserting the rights of the state, the laws of the land, the being of the constitution, will meet allting their assistance, I am embarrassed with events with becoming fortitude. They will court victory with the spirit their cause inspires, and from the same motive will find the patience of martyrs under misfortune. Till I read your insinuations in regard to ministers, I conceived that I had acted under the king, whose wishes, it is true, as well as those of his ministers, and of every honest man, have been to see this unhappy breach forever closed; but unfortunately for both countries, those, who have long since projected the present crisis, and influence the councils of America, have views very distant from accommodation. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant, THOMAS GAGE. GEORGE WASHINGTON, ESQ. WASHINGTON'S REPLY. HEADQUARTERS, CAMBRIDGE, August 19, 1775. Sir-I addressed you on the 11th inst. in terms which gave the fairest scope for the exercise of that humanity and politeness, which were supposed to form a part of your character. I remonstrated with you on the unworthy treatment shewn to the officers and citizens of America, whom the fortune of war, chance, or a mistaken confidence, had thrown into your hands. Whether British or American mercy, fortitude, and patience, are most pre-eminentwhether our virtuous citizens, whom the hand of tyranny has forced into arms, to defend their wives, their children, and their property, or the mercenary instruments of lawless domination, avarice, and revenge, best deserve the appellation of rebels, and the punishment of that cord, which your affected clemency has forborne to inflict-whether the authority under which I act, is usurped, or founded upon the genuine principles of liberty-were altogether foreign to the subject. I purposely avoided all political disquisition; nor shall I now avail myself of those advantages, which the sacred cause of my country, of liberty and human nature, give me over you; much less shall I stoop to retort any invective. But the intelligence, you say you have received from our army, requires a the numbers who crowd to our camp, animated with the purest principles of virtue and love of their country. You advise me to give free operation to truth; to punish misrepresentation and falsehood. If experience stamps value upon counsel, yours must have a weight which few can claim. You best can tell, how far the convulsion, which has brought such ruin on both countries, and shaken the mighty empire of Britain to its foundation, may be traced to these malignant causes. You affect, sir, to despise all rank, not derived from the same source with your own. I cannot conceive one more honorable, than that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power. Far from making it a plea for cruelty, a mind of true magnanimity and enlarged ideas, would comprehend and respect it. What may have been the ministerial views which have precipitated the present crisis, Lexington, Concord, and Charlestown, can best declare. May that God, to whom you then appealed, judge between America and you. Under his providence, those who influence the councils of America, and all the other inhabitants of the United Colonies, at the hazard of their lives, are determined to hand down to posterity those just and invaluable privileges which they received from their ancestors. I shall now, sir, close my correspondence with you, perhaps forever. If your officers, our prisoners, receive a treatment from me, different from what I wished to shew them, they and you will remember the occasion of it. I am, sir, your very humble servant, GENERAL GAGE. GEORGE WASHINGTON. upon a permanent footing, and giving your officers good pay. This will induce gentlemen, and men of character, to engage: and, till the bulk of your officers are composed of such persons as are actuated by principles of honor and a spirit of enterprise, you have little to expect from them. They ought to have such allowances as will enable them to live like, and support the characters of, gentlemen. Besides, something is due to the man who puts his life in your hands, hazards his health, and forsakes the sweets of domestic enjoyment. Why a captain in the continental service should receive no more than five shillings currency per day, for performing the same duties that an officer of the same rank in the British service conceive, especially when the latter is provided with every necessary he requires, upon the best terms, and the former can scarcely procure them at any rate. There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of every body but the state he serves. We are now, as it were, upon the eve of another dissolution of our army. The remem-receives ten shillings sterling for, I never could brance of the difficulties which happened upon the occasion last year, the consequences which might have followed the change, if proper advantages had been taken by the enemy, added to a knowledge of the present temper and situation of the troops, reflect but a very gloomy prospect upon the appearance of things now, and satisfy me beyond the possibility of doubt, that, unless some speedy and effectual measures are adopted by congress, our cause will be lost. With respect to the men, nothing but a good bounty can obtain them upon a permanent establishment; and for no shorter time than the continuance of the war, ought they to be engaged, as facts incontestibly prove that the difficulty and cost of enlistments increase with time. When the army was first at Cambridge, I am persuaded the men might have been got, without a bounty, for the war. After this, they began to see that the contest was not likely to end so speedily as was imagined, and to feel their consequence by remarking, that, to get in the militia in the course of the last year, many towns were induced to give them a bounty. It is in vain to expect, that any, or more than a trifling part of this army will again engage in the service on the encouragement offered by congress. When men find that their townsmen and companions are receiving twenty, thirty, and more, dollars for a few months' service (which is truly the case) it cannot be expected, without using compulsion; and to force them into the service, would answer no valuable purpose. When men are irritated, and the passions inflamed, they fly hastily and cheerfully to arms: but after the first emotions are over, a soldier reasoned with upon the goodness of the cause he is engaged in, and the in-bly would follow short enlistments, I took the estimable rights he is contending for, hears you with patience, and acknowledges the truth of your observation, but adds, that it is of no more importance to him than others. The officer makes you the same reply, with this further remark, that his pay will not support him, and he cannot ruin himself and family to serve his country when every member of the community is equally interested and benefited by his labors. It becomes evidently clear then, that, as this contest is not likely to be the work of a day; as the war must be carried on systematically; and to do it you must have good officers; there are, in my judgment, no other possible means to obtain them, but by establishing your army Foreseeing the evils resulting from this, and the destructive consequences which unavoida liberty, in a long letter, (date not recollected, as my letter book is not here) to recommend the enlistments for and during the war, assigning such reasons for it as experience has since convinced me were well founded. At that time, twenty dollars would, I am persuaded, have engaged the men for this term. But it will not do to look back: and, if the present opportunity is slipped, I am persuaded that twelve months more will increase our difficulties fourfold. I shall therefore take the freedom of giving it as my opinion, that a good bounty be immediately offered, aided by the proffer of at least a hundred, or a hundred and fifty acres of land, and a suit of clothes and blanket, to each non-commissioned officer and soldier; as I have good authority for saying, | of these we have two sorts, six months' men, that, however high the men's pay may appear, it is barely sufficient, in the present scarcity and dearness of all kinds of goods, to keep them in clothes, much less afford support to their families. and those sent in as temporary aid) do not think themselves subject to them, and therefore take liberties which the soldier is punished for. This creates jealousy: jealousy begets dissatisfaction and these by degrees, ripen into mutiny, keeping the whole army in a confused and disordered state; rendering the time of those who wish to see regularity and good describe. Besides this, such repeated changes take place that all arrangement is set at nought, and the constant fluctuation of things deranges every plan as fast as adopted. If this encouragement then is given to the men, and such pay allowed the officers as will induce gentlemen of character and liberal sentiments, to engage, and proper care and pre-order prevail, more unhappy than words can caution used in the nomination (having more regard to the characters of persons than the number of men they can enlist) we should, in a little time, have an army able to cope with any that can be opposed to it, as there are excellent materials to form one. But while the only merit an officer possesses, is his ability to raise men; while those men consider and treat him as an equal, and, in the character of an officer, regard him no more than a broom-stick, being mixed together as one common herd, no order nor discipline can prevail; nor will the officer ever meet with that respect which is essentially necessary to due subordination. To place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff; men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of arms; totally unacquainted with military skill; which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed; superior in knowledge and superior in arms, makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows. Besides, the sudden change in their manner of living, particularly in their lodgings, brings on sickness in many, impatience in all: and such an unconquerable desire of returning to their respective homes, that it not only produces shameful and scandalous desertions among themselves, but infuses the like spirit into others. Again; men accustomed to unbounded freedom and no control, cannot brook the restraint which is indispensably necessary to the good order and government of an army; without which, licentiousness and every kind of disorder triumphantly reign. To bring men to a proper degree of subordination is not the work of a day, a month, or even a year: and, unhappily for us and the cause we are engaged in, the little discipline I have been laboring to establish in the army under my immediate command, is in a manner done away, by having such a mixture of troops as have been called together within these few months. Relaxed and unfit as our rules and regulations of war are, for the government of an army, the militia (those properly so called; for These, sir, congress may be assured, are but a small part of the inconveniences which might be enumerated, and attributed to militia; but there is one that merits particular attention, and that is the expense. Certain I am, that it would be cheaper to keep fifty or a hundred thousand in constant pay, than to depend upon half the number, and supply the other half occasionally by militia. The time the latter are in pay, before and after they are in camp, assembling, and marching; the waste of ammunition, the consumption of stores, which, in spite of every resolution or requisition of congress, they must be furnished with, or sent home, added to other incidental expenses consequent upon their coming and conduct in camp, surpasses all idea, and destroys every kind of regularity and economy which you could establish among fixed and settled troops, and will, in my opinion, prove, if the scheme is adhered to, the ruin of our cause. The jealousies of a standing army, and the evils to be apprehended from one, arc remote, and, in my judgment, situated and circumstanced as we are, not at all to be dreaded; but the consequence of wanting one, according to my ideas, formed from the present view of things, is certain and inevitable ruin. For, if I was called upon to declare upon oath, whether the militia have been most serviceable or hurtful, upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter. I do not mean by this, however, to arraign the conduct of congress; in so doing I should equally condemn my own measures, if I did not my judgment; but experience, which is the best criterion to work by, so fully, so clearly, and decisively reprobates the practice of trusting to militia, that no man, who regards order, regularity and economy, or who has any regard for his own honor, character, or peace of mind, will risk them upon this issue. An army formed of good officers moves like clock-work; but there is no situation upon earth less enviable nor more distressing than that person's who is at the head of troops who are regardless of order and discipline, and who are unprovided with almost every necessary. In a word, the difficulties which have forever surrounded me, since I have been in the service, and kept my mind constantly upon the stretch; the wounds which my feelings, as an officer, have received by a thousand things which have happened contrary to my expectations and wishes: added to a consciousness of my inability to govern an army composed of such discordant parts, and under such a variety of intricate and perplexing circumstances, induce, not only a belief, but a thorough conviction in my mind, that it will be impossible, unless there is a thorough change in our military system, for me to conduct matters in such a manner as to give satisfaction to the public, which is all the recompense I aim at, or ever wished for. Before I conclude, I must apologize for the liberties taken in this letter, and for the blots and scratchings therein, not having time to give it more correctly. With truth, I can add, that, with every sentiment of respect and esteem, I am yours and the congress's most obedient, etc. GEORGE WASHINGTON. GENERAL WASHINGTON'S of a brighter day than hath hitherto illuminated the western hemisphere. On such a happy day, which is the harbinger of peace, a day which completes the eighth year of the war, it would be ingratitude not to rejoice; it would be insensibility not to participate in the general felicity. The commander in chief, far from endeavoring to stifle the feelings of joy in his own bosom, offers his most cordial congratulations on the occasion to all the officers of every denomination; to all the troops of the United States in general; and in particular to those gallant and persevering men who had resolved to defend the rights of their invaded country, so long as the war should continue. For these are men who ought to be considered as the pride and boast of the American army; and who, crowned with well earned laurels, may soon withdraw from the field of glory to the more tranquil walks of civil life. While the commander in chief recollects the almost infinite variety of scenes through which we have past, with a mixture of pleasure, astonishment, and gratitude; while he contemplates the prospects before us with rapture, he cannot help wishing that all the brave, of whatever condition they may be, who have shared the toils and dangers of effecting this glorious revolution; of rescuing millions from the hand of oppression, and of laying the foundation of a great empire, might be impressed with a proper idea of the dignified part they have been GENERAL ORDERS ISSUED TO THE ARMY, called to act, under the smiles of Providence APRIL 18, 1783. HEADQUARTERS, Chatham, April 18, 1783. The commander in chief orders the cessation of hostilities between the United States of America and the king of Great Britain, to be publicly proclaimed to-morrow at twelve o'clock, at the new building; and that the proclamation which will be communicated herewith, be read to-morrow evening at the head of every regiment and corps of the army; after which the chaplains, with the several brigades, will render thanks to the Almighty God for all his mercies, particularly for his over-ruling the wrath of man to his own glory, and causing the rage of war to cease among the nations. Although the proclamation before alluded to, extends only to the prohibition of hostilities, and not to the annunciation of a general peace, yet it must afford the most rational and sincere satisfaction to every benevolent mind, as it puts a period to a long and doubtful contest, stops the effusion of human blood, opens the prospect to a more splendid scene, and, like another morning star, promises the approach on the stage of human affairs; for happy, thrice happy! shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed anything, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire, on the broad basis of independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of human nature, and established an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions. The glorious task for which we first flew to arms being accomplished-the liberties of our country being fully acknowledged and firmly secured by the smiles of heaven on the purity of our cause; and the honest exertions of a feeble people, determined to be free, against a powerful nation disposed to oppress them; and the character of those who have persevered, through every extremity of hardship, suffering and danger, being immortalized by the illustrious appellation of the patriot army-nothing now remains but for the actors of this mighty scene to preserve a perfect unvarying consistency of character through the very last act, to close the drama with applause; and to retire from |