address this to you in behalf even of an enemy, a captain in the British
service, now on his way to the headquarters of the American army, and
unfortunately doomed to death for a crime not his own. A sentence so
extraordinary, an execution so repugnant to every human sensation, ought
never to be told without the circumstances which produced it: and as the
destined victim is yet in existence, and in your hands rests his life or
death, I shall briefly state the case, and the melancholy consequence.
Captain Huddy, of the Jersey militia, was attacked in a small fort on
Tom's River, by a party of refugees in the British pay and service, was
made prisoner, together with his company, carried to New York and lodged
in the provost of that city: about three weeks after which, he was taken
out of the provost down to the water-side, put into a boat, and brought
again upon the Jersey shore, and there, contrary to the practice of all
nations but savages, was hung up on a tree, and left hanging till found
by our people who took him down and buried him. The inhabitants of that
part of the country where the murder was committed, sent a deputation
to General Washington with a full and certified statement of the fact.
Struck, as every human breast must be, with such brutish outrage, and
determined both to punish and prevent it for the future, the General
represented the case to General Clinton, who then commanded, and
demanded that the refugee officer who ordered and attended the
execution, and whose name is Lippencott, should be delivered up as
a murderer; and in case of refusal, that the person of some British
officer should suffer in his stead. The demand, though not refused, has
not been complied with; and the melancholy lot (not by selection, but by
casting lots) has fallen upon Captain Asgill, of the Guards, who, as I
have already mentioned, is on his way from Lancaster to camp, a
martyr to the general wickedness of the cause he engaged in, and the
ingratitude of those whom he served.
The first reflection which arises on this black business is, what sort
of men must Englishmen be, and what sort of order and discipline do
they preserve in their army, when in the immediate place of their
headquarters, and under the eye and nose of their commander-in-chief,
a prisoner can be taken at pleasure from his confinement, and his death
made a matter of sport.
The history of the most savage Indians does not produce instances
exactly of this kind. They, at least, have a formality in their
punishments. With them it is the horridness of revenge, but with your
army it is a still greater crime, the horridness of diversion. The
British generals who have succeeded each other, from the time of General
Gage to yourself, have all affected to speak in language that they have
no right to. In their proclamations, their addresses, their letters
to General Washington, and their supplications to Congress (for they
deserve no other name) they talk of British honor, British generosity,
and British clemency, as if those things were matters of fact; whereas,
we whose eyes are open, who speak the same language with yourselves,
many of whom were born on the same spot with you, and who can no more
be mistaken in your words than in your actions, can declare to all the
world, that so far as our knowledge goes, there is not a more detestable
character, nor a meaner or more barbarous enemy, than the present
British one. With us, you have forfeited all pretensions to reputation,
and it is only by holding you like a wild beast, afraid of your keepers,
that you can be made manageable. But to return to the point in question.
Though I can think no man innocent who has lent his hand to destroy
the country which he did not plant, and to ruin those that he could not
enslave, yet, abstracted from all ideas of right and wrong on the
original question, Captain Asgill, in the present case, is not the
guilty man. The villain and the victim are here separated characters.
You hold the one and we the other. You disown, or affect to disown and
reprobate the conduct of Lippincut, yet you give him a sanctuary; and by
so doing you as effectually become the executioner of Asgill, as if you
had put the rope on his neck, and dismissed him from the world. Whatever
your feelings on this interesting occasion may be are best known to
yourself. Within the grave of your own mind lies buried the fate of
Asgill. He becomes the corpse of your will, or the survivor of your
justice. Deliver up the one, and you save the other; withhold the one,
and the other dies by your choice.
On our part the case is exceeding plain; an officer has been taken from
his confinement and murdered, and the murderer is within your lines.
Your army has been guilty of a thousand instances of equal cruelty,
but they have been rendered equivocal, and sheltered from personal
detection. Here the crime is fixed; and is one of those extraordinary
cases which can neither be denied nor palliated, and to which the custom
of war does not apply; for it never could be supposed that such a brutal
outrage would ever be committed. It is an original in the history
of civilized barbarians, and is truly British. On your part you are
accountable to us for the personal safety of the prisoners within your
walls. Here can be no mistake; they can neither be spies nor suspected
as such; your security is not endangered, nor your operations subjected
to miscarriage, by men immured within a dungeon. They differ in every
circumstance from men in the field, and leave no pretence for severity
of punishment. But if to the dismal condition of captivity with you must
be added the constant apprehensions of death; if to be imprisoned is
so nearly to be entombed; and if, after all, the murderers are to be
protected, and thereby the crime encouraged, wherein do you differ from
[American] Indians either in conduct or character?
We can have no idea of your honor, or your justice, in any future
transaction, of what nature it may be, while you shelter within your
lines an outrageous murderer, and sacrifice in his stead an officer of
your own. If you have no regard to us, at least spare the blood which
it is your duty to save. Whether the punishment will be greater on him,
who, in this case, innocently dies, or on him whom sad necessity forces
to retaliate, is, in the nicety of sensation, an undecided question? It
rests with you to prevent the sufferings of both. You have nothing to do
but to give up the murderer, and the matter ends.
But to protect him, be he who he may, is to patronize his crime, and to
trifle it off by frivolous and unmeaning inquiries, is to promote it.
There is no declaration you can make, nor promise you can give that will
obtain credit. It is the man and not the apology that is demanded.
You see yourself pressed on all sides to spare the life of your own
officer, for die he will if you withhold justice. The murder of Captain
Huddy is an offence not to be borne with, and there is no security which
we can have, that such actions or similar ones shall not be repeated,
but by making the punishment fall upon yourselves. To destroy the last
security of captivity, and to take the unarmed, the unresisting prisoner
to private and sportive execution, is carrying barbarity too high for
silence. The evil must be put an end to; and the choice of persons rests
with you. But if your attachment to the guilty is stronger than to the
innocent, you invent a crime that must destroy your character, and if
the cause of your king needs to be so supported, for ever cease, sir,
to torture our remembrance with the wretched phrases of British honor,
British generosity and British clemency.
From this melancholy circumstance, learn, sir, a lesson of morality. The
refugees are men whom your predecessors have instructed in wickedness,
the better to fit them to their master's purpose. To make them useful,
they have made them vile, and the consequence of their tutored villany
is now descending on the heads of their encouragers. They have been
trained like hounds to the scent of blood, and cherished in every
species of dissolute barbarity. Their ideas of right and wrong are
worn away in the constant habitude of repeated infamy, till, like men
practised in execution, they feel not the value of another's life.
The task before you, though painful, is not difficult; give up the
murderer, and save your officer, as the first outset of a necessary
reformation. COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA May 31, 1782.
THE CRISIS. XII. TO THE EARL OF SHELBURNE.
MY LORD,--A speech, which has been printed in several of the British and
New York newspapers, as coming from your lordship, in answer to one from
the Duke of Richmond, of the 10th of July last, contains expressions and
opinions so new and singular, and so enveloped in mysterious reasoning,
that I address this publication to you, for the purpose of giving them a
free and candid examination. The speech I allude to is in these words:
"His lordship said, it had been mentioned in another place, that he had
been guilty of inconsistency. To clear himself of this, he asserted that
he still held the same principles in respect to American independence
which he at first imbibed. He had been, and yet was of opinion, whenever
the Parliament of Great Britain acknowledges that point, the sun of
England's glory is set forever. Such were the sentiments he possessed on
a former day, and such the sentiments he continued to hold at this
hour. It was the opinion of Lord Chatham, as well as many other able
statesmen. Other noble lords, however, think differently, and as the
majority of the cabinet support them, he acquiesced in the measure,
dissenting from the idea; and the point is settled for bringing
the matter into the full discussion of Parliament, where it will be
candidly, fairly, and impartially debated. The independence of America
would end in the ruin of England; and that a peace patched up with
France, would give that proud enemy the means of yet trampling on this
country. The sun of England's glory he wished not to see set forever; he
looked for a spark at least to be left, which might in time light us
up to a new day. But if independence was to be granted, if Parliament
deemed that measure prudent, he foresaw, in his own mind, that England
was undone. He wished to God that he had been deputed to Congress, that
be might plead the cause of that country as well as of this, and that he
might exercise whatever powers he possessed as an orator, to save both
from ruin, in a conviction to Congress, that, if their independence was
signed, their liberties were gone forever.
"Peace, his lordship added, was a desirable object, but it must be an
honorable peace, and not an humiliating one, dictated by France, or
insisted on by America. It was very true, that this kingdom was not in a
flourishing state, it was impoverished by war. But if we were not
rich, it was evident that France was poor. If we were straitened in our
finances, the enemy were exhausted in their resources. This was a great
empire; it abounded with brave men, who were able and willing to fight
in a common cause; the language of humiliation should not, therefore, be
the language of Great Britain. His lordship said, that he was not afraid
nor ashamed of those expressions going to America. There were numbers,
great numbers there, who were of the same way of thinking, in respect
to that country being dependent on this, and who, with his lordship,
perceived ruin and independence linked together."
Thus far the speech; on which I remark--That his lordship is a total
stranger to the mind and sentiments of America; that he has wrapped
himself up in fond delusion, that something less than independence, may,
under his administration, be accepted; and he wishes himself sent to
Congress, to prove the most extraordinary of all doctrines, which is,
that independence, the sublimest of all human conditions, is loss of
liberty.
In answer to which we may say, that in order to know what the contrary
word dependence means, we have only to look back to those years of
severe humiliation, when the mildest of all petitions could obtain no
other notice than the haughtiest of all insults; and when the base
terms of unconditional submission were demanded, or undistinguishable
destruction threatened. It is nothing to us that the ministry have been
changed, for they may be changed again. The guilt of a government is
the crime of a whole country; and the nation that can, though but for
a moment, think and act as England has done, can never afterwards be
believed or trusted. There are cases in which it is as impossible to
restore character to life, as it is to recover the dead. It is a phoenix
that can expire but once, and from whose ashes there is no resurrection.
Some offences are of such a slight composition, that they reach no
further than the temper, and are created or cured by a thought. But the
sin of England has struck the heart of America, and nature has not left
in our power to say we can forgive.
Your lordship wishes for an opportunity to plead before Congress the
cause of England and America, and to save, as you say, both from ruin.
That the country, which, for more than seven years has sought our
destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is adding the
wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappointment; and if England
has the least spark of supposed honor left, that spark must be darkened
by asking, and extinguished by receiving, the smallest favor from
America; for the criminal who owes his life to the grace and mercy of
the injured, is more executed by living, than he who dies.
But a thousand pleadings, even from your lordship, can have no effect.
Honor, interest, and every sensation of the heart, would plead against
you. We are a people who think not as you think; and what is equally
true, you cannot feel as we feel. The situations of the two countries
are exceedingly different. Ours has been the seat of war; yours has seen
nothing of it. The most wanton destruction has been committed in our
sight; the most insolent barbarity has been acted on our feelings. We
can look round and see the remains of burnt and destroyed houses, once
the fair fruit of hard industry, and now the striking monuments of
British brutality. We walk over the dead whom we loved, in every part of
America, and remember by whom they fell. There is scarcely a village but
brings to life some melancholy thought, and reminds us of what we have
suffered, and of those we have lost by the inhumanity of Britain. A
thousand images arise to us, which, from situation, you cannot see, and
are accompanied by as many ideas which you cannot know; and therefore
your supposed system of reasoning would apply to nothing, and all your
expectations die of themselves.
The question whether England shall accede to the independence of
America, and which your lordship says is to undergo a parliamentary
discussion, is so very simple, and composed of so few cases, that it
scarcely needs a debate.
It is the only way out of an expensive and ruinous war, which has no
object, and without which acknowledgment there can be no peace.
But your lordship says, the sun of Great Britain will set whenever she
acknowledges the independence of America.--Whereas the metaphor would
have been strictly just, to have left the sun wholly out of the figure,
and have ascribed her not acknowledging it to the influence of the moon.
But the expression, if true, is the greatest confession of disgrace
that could be made, and furnishes America with the highest notions of
sovereign independent importance. Mr. Wedderburne, about the year 1776,
made use of an idea of much the same kind,--Relinquish America! says
he--What is it but to desire a giant to shrink spontaneously into a
dwarf.
Alas! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so little
internal consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts her eyes
upon them, their sun is set, they can shine no more, but grope about in
obscurity, and contract into insignificant animals? Was America, then,
the giant of the empire, and England only her dwarf in waiting! Is the
case so strangely altered, that those who once thought we could not live
without them, are now brought to declare that they cannot exist without
us? Will they tell to the world, and that from their first minister of
state, that America is their all in all; that it is by her importance
only that they can live, and breathe, and have a being? Will they, who
long since threatened to bring us to their feet, bow themselves to
ours, and own that without us they are not a nation? Are they become so
unqualified to debate on independence, that they have lost all idea of
it themselves, and are calling to the rocks and mountains of America to
cover their insignificance? Or, if America is lost, is it manly to sob
over it like a child for its rattle, and invite the laughter of the
world by declarations of disgrace? Surely, a more consistent line of
conduct would be to bear it without complaint; and to show that England,
without America, can preserve her independence, and a suitable rank with
other European powers. You were not contented while you had her, and to
weep for her now is childish.
But Lord Shelburne thinks something may yet be done. What that something
is, or how it is to be accomplished, is a matter in obscurity. By arms
there is no hope. The experience of nearly eight years, with the expense
of an hundred million pounds sterling, and the loss of two armies,
must positively decide that point. Besides, the British have lost their
interest in America with the disaffected. Every part of it has been
tried. There is no new scene left for delusion: and the thousands
who have been ruined by adhering to them, and have now to quit the
settlements which they had acquired, and be conveyed like transports to
cultivate the deserts of Augustine and Nova Scotia, has put an end to
all further expectations of aid.
If you cast your eyes on the people of England, what have they
to console themselves with for the millions expended? Or, what
encouragement is there left to continue throwing good money after bad?
America can carry on the war for ten years longer, and all the charges
of government included, for less than you can defray the charges of war
and government for one year. And I, who know both countries, know well,
that the people of America can afford to pay their share of the expense
much better than the people of England can. Besides, it is their own
estates and property, their own rights, liberties and government, that
they are defending; and were they not to do it, they would deserve to
lose all, and none would pity them. The fault would be their own, and
their punishment just.
The British army in America care not how long the war lasts. They enjoy
an easy and indolent life. They fatten on the folly of one country and
the spoils of another; and, between their plunder and their prey, may go
home rich. But the case is very different with the laboring farmer, the
working tradesman, and the necessitous poor in England, the sweat of
whose brow goes day after day to feed, in prodigality and sloth, the
army that is robbing both them and us. Removed from the eye of that
country that supports them, and distant from the government that employs
them, they cut and carve for themselves, and there is none to call them
to account.
But England will be ruined, says Lord Shelburne, if America is
independent.
Then I say, is England already ruined, for America is already
independent: and if Lord Shelburne will not allow this, he immediately
denies the fact which he infers. Besides, to make England the mere
creature of America, is paying too great a compliment to us, and too
little to himself.
But the declaration is a rhapsody of inconsistency. For to say, as Lord
Shelburne has numberless times said, that the war against America is
ruinous, and yet to continue the prosecution of that ruinous war for
the purpose of avoiding ruin, is a language which cannot be understood.
Neither is it possible to see how the independence of America is to
accomplish the ruin of England after the war is over, and yet not affect
it before. America cannot be more independent of her, nor a greater
enemy to her, hereafter than she now is; nor can England derive less
advantages from her than at present: why then is ruin to follow in the
best state of the case, and not in the worst? And if not in the worst,
why is it to follow at all?
That a nation is to be ruined by peace and commerce, and fourteen or
fifteen millions a-year less expenses than before, is a new doctrine in
politics. We have heard much clamor of national savings and economy; but
surely the true economy would be, to save the whole charge of a silly,
foolish, and headstrong war; because, compared with this, all other
retrenchments are baubles and trifles.
But is it possible that Lord Shelburne can be serious in supposing that
the least advantage can be obtained by arms, or that any advantage can
be equal to the expense or the danger of attempting it? Will not
the capture of one army after another satisfy him, must all become
prisoners? Must England ever be the sport of hope, and the victim of
delusion? Sometimes our currency was to fail; another time our army was
to disband; then whole provinces were to revolt. Such a general said
this and that; another wrote so and so; Lord Chatham was of this
opinion; and lord somebody else of another. To-day 20,000 Russians and
20 Russian ships of the line were to come; to-morrow the empress was
abused without mercy or decency. Then the Emperor of Germany was to
be bribed with a million of money, and the King of Prussia was to do
wonderful things. At one time it was, Lo here! and then it was, Lo
there! Sometimes this power, and sometimes that power, was to engage in
the war, just as if the whole world was mad and foolish like Britain.
And thus, from year to year, has every straw been catched at, and every
Will-with-a-wisp led them a new dance.
This year a still newer folly is to take place. Lord Shelburne wishes to
be sent to Congress, and he thinks that something may be done.
Are not the repeated declarations of Congress, and which all America
supports, that they will not even hear any proposals whatever, until the
unconditional and unequivocal independence of America is recognised; are
not, I say, these declarations answer enough?
But for England to receive any thing from America now, after so many
insults, injuries and outrages, acted towards us, would show such
a spirit of meanness in her, that we could not but despise her for
accepting it. And so far from Lord Shelburne's coming here to solicit
it, it would be the greatest disgrace we could do them to offer it.
England would appear a wretch indeed, at this time of day, to ask or owe
any thing to the bounty of America. Has not the name of Englishman blots
enough upon it, without inventing more? Even Lucifer would scorn to
reign in heaven by permission, and yet an Englishman can creep for only
an entrance into America. Or, has a land of liberty so many charms, that
to be a doorkeeper in it is better than to be an English minister of
state?
But what can this expected something be? Or, if obtained, what can it
amount to, but new disgraces, contentions and quarrels? The people
of America have for years accustomed themselves to think and speak so
freely and contemptuously of English authority, and the inveteracy is
so deeply rooted, that a person invested with any authority from that
country, and attempting to exercise it here, would have the life of a
toad under a harrow. They would look on him as an interloper, to whom
their compassion permitted a residence. He would be no more than the
Mungo of a farce; and if he disliked that, he must set off. It would
be a station of degradation, debased by our pity, and despised by our
pride, and would place England in a more contemptible situation than
any she has yet been in during the war. We have too high an opinion
of ourselves, even to think of yielding again the least obedience to
outlandish authority; and for a thousand reasons, England would be the
last country in the world to yield it to. She has been treacherous, and
we know it. Her character is gone, and we have seen the funeral.
Surely she loves to fish in troubled waters, and drink the cup of
contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with
those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms
the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns
of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and
proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is as servile as the war is
wicked, and shows the last scene of the drama to be as inconsistent as
the first.