Philadelphia, 4 May, 1777.
Inclosed with this you will have an "Evening Post" containing some of
the tender mercies of the barbarians to their prisoners. If there is a
man, woman, or child in America who can read these depositions without
resentment and horror, that person has no soul, or a very wicked one.
Their treatment of prisoners last year, added to an act of Parliament
which they have made, to enable them to send prisoners to England, to be
there murdered with still more relentless cruelty in prisons, will bring
our officers and soldiers to the universal resolution to _conquer or
die_. This maxim, "CONQUER OR DIE," never failed to raise a people who
adopted it to the head of mankind. An express from Portsmouth, last
night, brought us news of the arrival of arms and ordnance enough to
enable us to take vengeance of these foes of human nature.