That they have made the fullest enquiry that the circumstances of the
case would admit, relative to the Facts mentioned in said Letter, But
have not been able to obtain any Evidence to support them--and are
therefore of opinion that the Committee ought to be discharged.
March 20, 1782.
In council June 16, 1779.
The board proceeded to the consideration of the letters of colonel
Clarke, and other papers relating to Henry Hamilton Esqr., who has
acted for some years past as Lieutenant Governour of the settlement
at and about Detroit, and Commandant of the British garrison there,
under Sir Guy Carleton as Governour in Chief; Philip Dejean Justice
of the Peace for Detroit and William Lamothe, Captain of volunteers,
prisoners of war, taken in the county of Illinois.
They find that Governour Hamilton has executed the task of inciting
the Indians to perpetrate their accustomed cruelties on the citizens
of these States, without distinction of age, sex, or condition, with
an eagerness and activity which evince that the general nature of
his charge harmonized with his particular disposition; they should
have been satisfied from the other testimony adduced that these
enormities were committed by savages acting under his commission,
but the number of proclamations which, at different times were left
in houses, the inhabitants of which were killed or carried away by
the Indians, one of which proclamations, under the hand and seal of
Governour Hamilton, is in possession of the Board, puts this fact
beyond doubt. At the time of his captivity it appears, that he had
sent considerable detachments of Indians against the frontier
settlements of these states, and had actually appointed a great
council of Indians to meet him at the mouth of the Tanissee, to
concert the operations of this present campaign. They find that his
treatment of our citizens and soldiers, captivated and carried
within the limits of his command, has been cruel and inhumane; that
in the case of John Dodge, a citizen of these states, which has been
particularly stated to this Board, he loaded him with irons, threw
him into a dungeon, without bedding, without straw, without fire, in
the dead of winter and severe climate of Detroit; that in that state
he harrassed and wasted him, with incessant expectations of death;
that when the rigours of his situation had brought him so low that
death seemed likely to withdraw him from their power, he was taken
out and attended to somewhat mended, and then again, before he had
recovered abilities to walk, was returned to his dungeon, in which a
hole was cut seven inches square only, for the admission of air, and
the same load of irons again put on him; that appearing again to be
in imminent danger of being lost to them, he was a second time taken
from his dungeon, in which he had lain from January to June, with
the intermission before mentioned of a few weeks only; That
Governour Hamilton gave standing rewards for scalps, but offered
none for prisoners, which induced the Indians, after making their
captives carry their baggage into the neighborhood of the fort,
there to put them to death, and carry in their scalps to the
Governour, who welcomed their return and success by a discharge of
cannon; that when a prisoner brought [a]live, and destined to death
by the Indians, the fire already kindled, and himself bound to the
stake, was dexterously withdrawn and secreted from them by the
humanity of a fellow prisoner; a large reward was offered for the
discovery of the victim, which having tempted a servant to betray
his concealment, the present prisoner Dejean being sent with a party
of soldiers, surrounded the house, took and threw into jail the
unhappy victim, and his deliverer, where the former soon expired
under the perpetual assurances of Dejean, that he was to be again
restored into the hands of the savages, and the latter when enlarged
was bitterly and illiberally reprimanded and threatened by Governour
Hamilton.
It appears to them that the prisoner Dejean, was on all occasions
the willing and cordial instrument of Governour Hamilton, acting
both as judge and keeper of the jail, and instigating and urging him
by malicious insinuations and untruths, to increase rather than
relax his severities, heightening the cruelty of his orders by the
manner of executing them; offering at one time a reward to one
prisoner to be the hangman of another, threatening his life on
refusal, and taking from his prisoners the little property their
opportunities enabled them to acquire.
It appears that the prisoner, Lamothe, was a Captain of the
volunteer scalping parties of Indians and whites wh[o] went out from
time to time, under general orders to spare neither men, women, nor
children.
From this detail of circumstances which arose in a few cases only,
coming accidentally to the knowledge of the Board they think
themselves authorized to presume by fair deduction what would be the
horrid history of the sufferings of the many who have expired under
their miseries (which therefore will remain forever untold) or who
having escaped from them, are yet too remote and too much dispersed
to bring together their well grounded accusations against these
prisoners.
They have seen that the conduct of the British officers, civil and
military, has in its general tenor, through the whole course of this
war, been savage & unprecedented among civilized nations; that our
officers and soldiers taken by them have been loaded with irons,
consigned to loathesome and crouded jails, dungeons, and prison
ships; supplied often with no food, generally with too little for
the sustenance of nature, and that little sometimes unsound and
unwholsome, whereby so many of them have perished that captivity and
miserable death have with them been almost synonimous; that they
have been transported beyond seas where their fate is out of the
reach of our enquiry, have been compelled to take arms against their
country, and by a new refinement in cruelty to become the murtherers
of their own brethren.
Their prisoners with us have, on the other hand, been treated with
moderation and humanity; they have been fed on all occasions with
wholesome and plentiful food, lodged comfortably, suffered to go at
large within extensive tracts of country, treated with liberal
hospitality, permitted to live in the families of our citizens, to
labour for themselves, to acquire and to enjoy property, and finally
to participate of the principal benefits of society while privileged
from all its burthens.
Reviewing this contrast which cannot be denied by our enemies
themselves in a single point, which has now been kept up during four
years of unremitted war, a term long enough to produce well founded
despair that our moderation may ever lead them into a practice of
humanity, called on by that justice which we owe to those who are
fighting the battles of their country, to deal out at length
miseries to their enemies, measure for measure, and to distress the
feelings of mankind by exhibiting to them spectacles of severe
retaliation, where we had long and vainly endeavoured to introduce
an emulation in kindness; happily possessed by the fortune of war
some of those very individuals, who having distinguished themselves
personally in this line of cruel conduct, are fit subjects to begin
on with the work of retaliation, this Board has resolved to advise
the Governour that the said Henry Hamilton, Philip Dejean, and
William Lamothe, prisoners of war, be put into irons, confined in
the dungeon of the publick jail, debarred the use of pen, ink, and
paper, and excluded all converse except with their keeper. And the
Governour orders accordingly.