WASHINGTON’S OBJECT IN DISTRESSING BOSTON—SCARCITY AND SICKNESS IN THE
TOWN—A STARTLING DISCOVERY—SCARCITY OF POWDER IN THE CAMP—ITS PERILOUS
SITUATION—ECONOMY OF AMMUNITION—CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LEE AND
BURGOYNE—CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND GAGE—THE DIGNITY OF THE
PATRIOT ARMY ASSERTED.
The great object of Washington at present, was to force the enemy to
come out of Boston and try a decisive action. His lines had for some
time cut off all communication of the town with the country, and he had
caused the live stock within a considerable distance of the place to be
driven back from the coast, out of reach of the men-of-war’s boats.
Fresh provisions and vegetables were consequently growing more and more
scarce and extravagantly dear, and sickness began to prevail. “I have
done and shall do every thing in my power to distress them,” writes he
to his brother John Augustine. “The transports have all arrived, and
their whole reinforcement is landed, so that I see no reason why they
should not, if they ever attempt it, come boldly out and put the matter
to issue at once.”
“We are in the strangest state in the world,” writes a lady from Boston,
“surrounded on all sides. The whole country is in arms and intrenched.
We are deprived of fresh provisions, subject to continual alarms and
cannonadings, the Provincials being very audacious and advancing to our
lines, since the arrival of Generals Washington and Lee to command
them.”
At this critical juncture, when Washington was pressing the siege, and
endeavoring to provoke a general action, a startling fact came to light;
the whole amount of powder in the camp would not furnish more than nine
cartridges to a man![7]
A gross error had been made by the committee of supplies when
Washington, on taking command, had required a return of the ammunition.
They had returned the whole amount of powder collected by the province,
upwards of three hundred barrels; without stating what had been
expended. The blunder was detected on an order being issued for a new
supply of cartridges. It was found that there were but thirty-two
barrels of powder in store.
This was an astounding discovery. Washington instantly despatched
letters and expresses to Rhode Island, the Jerseys, Ticonderoga and
elsewhere, urging immediate supplies of powder and lead; no quantity,
however small, to be considered beneath notice. In a letter to Governor
Cooke of Rhode Island, he suggested that an armed vessel of that
province might be sent to seize upon a magazine of gunpowder, said to be
in a remote part of the Island of Bermuda. “I am very sensible,” writes
he, “that at first view the project may appear hazardous, and its
success must depend on the concurrence of many circumstances; but we are
in a situation which requires us to run all risks. * * * Enterprises
which appear chimerical, often prove successful from that very
circumstance. Common sense and prudence will suggest vigilance and care,
where the danger is plain and obvious; but where little danger is
apprehended, the more the enemy will be unprepared, and, consequently,
there is the fairest prospect of success.”
Day after day elapsed without the arrival of any supplies; for in these
irregular times, the munitions of war were not readily procured. It
seemed hardly possible that the matter could be kept concealed from the
enemy. Their works on Bunker’s Hill commanded a full view of those of
the Americans on Winter and Prospect Hills. Each camp could see what was
passing in the other. The sentries were almost near enough to converse.
There was furtive intercourse occasionally between the men. In this
critical state, the American camp remained for a fortnight; the anxious
commander incessantly apprehending an attack. At length a partial supply
from the Jerseys put an end to this imminent risk. Washington’s
secretary, Reed, who had been the confidant of his troubles and
anxieties, gives a vivid expression of his feelings on the arrival of
this relief. “I can hardly look back, without shuddering, at our
situation before this increase of our stock. _Stock_ did I say? it was
next to nothing. Almost the whole powder of the army was in the
cartridge-boxes.”[8]
It is thought that, considering the clandestine intercourse carried on
between the two camps, intelligence of this deficiency of ammunition on
the part of the besiegers must have been conveyed to the British
commander; but that the bold face with which the Americans continued to
maintain their position, made him discredit it.
Notwithstanding the supply from the Jerseys, there was not more powder
in camp than would serve the artillery for one day of general action.
None, therefore, was allowed to be wasted; the troops were even obliged
to bear in silence an occasional cannonading. “Our poverty in
ammunition,” writes Washington, “prevents our making a suitable return.”
One of the painful circumstances attending the outbreak of a
revolutionary war is, that gallant men, who have held allegiance to the
same government, and fought side by side under the same flag, suddenly
find themselves in deadly conflict with each other. Such was the case at
present in the hostile camps. General Lee, it will be recollected, had
once served under General Burgoyne, in Portugal, and had won his
brightest laurels when detached by that commander to surprise the
Spanish camp, near the Moorish castle of Villa Velha. A soldier’s
friendship had ever since existed between them, and when Lee had heard
at Philadelphia, before he had engaged in the American service, that his
old comrade and commander was arrived at Boston, he wrote a letter to
him giving his own views on the points in dispute between the colonies
and the mother country, and inveighing with his usual vehemence and
sarcastic point, against the conduct of the court and ministry. Before
sending the letter, he submitted it to the Boston delegates and other
members of Congress, and received their sanction.
Since his arrival in camp he had received a reply from Burgoyne, couched
in moderate and courteous language, and proposing an interview at a
designated house on Boston Neck, within the British sentries; mutual
pledges to be given for each other’s safety.
Lee submitted this letter to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts,
and requested their commands with respect to the proposed interview.
They expressed, in reply, the highest confidence in his wisdom,
discretion and integrity, but questioned whether the interview might not
be regarded by the public with distrust; “a people contending for their
liberties being naturally disposed to jealousy.” They suggested,
therefore, as a means of preventing popular misconception, that Lee on
seeking the interview, should be accompanied by Mr. Elbridge Gerry; or
that the advice of a council of war should be taken in a matter of such
apparent delicacy.
Lee became aware of the surmises that might be awakened by the proposed
interview, and wrote a friendly note to Burgoyne declining it.
A correspondence of a more important character took place between
Washington and General Gage. It was one intended to put the hostile
services on a proper footing. A strong disposition had been manifested
among the British officers to regard those engaged in the patriot cause
as malefactors, outlawed from the courtesies of chivalric warfare.
Washington was determined to have a full understanding on this point. He
was peculiarly sensitive with regard to Gage. They had been companions
in arms in their early days; but Gage might now affect to look down upon
him as the chief of a rebel army. Washington took an early opportunity
to let him know, that he claimed to be the commander of a legitimate
force, engaged in a legitimate cause, and that both himself and his army
were to be treated on a footing of perfect equality. The correspondence
arose from the treatment of several American officers.
“I understand,” writes Washington to Gage, “that the officers engaged in
the cause of liberty and their country, who by the fortune of war have
fallen into your hands, have been thrown indiscriminately into a common
jail, appropriated to felons; that no consideration has been had for
those of the most respectable rank, when languishing with wounds and
sickness, and that some have been amputated in this unworthy situation.
Let your opinion, sir, of the principles which actuate them, be what it
may, they suppose that they act from the noblest of all principles, love
of freedom and their country. But political principles, I conceive, are
foreign to this point. The obligations arising from the rights of
humanity and claims of rank are universally binding and extensive,
except in case of retaliation. These, I should have hoped, would have
dictated a more tender treatment of those individuals whom chance or war
had put in your power. Nor can I forbear suggesting its fatal tendency
to widen that unhappy breach which you, and those ministers under whom
you act, have repeatedly declared your wish to see for ever closed. My
duty now makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I shall
regulate all my conduct towards those gentlemen who are, or may be, in
our possession, exactly by the rule you shall observe towards those of
ours, now in your custody.
“If severity and hardships mark the line of your conduct, painful as it
may be to me, your prisoners will feel its effects. But if kindness and
humanity are shown to us, I shall with pleasure consider those in our
hands only as unfortunate, and they shall receive from me that treatment
to which the unfortunate are ever entitled.”
The following are the essential parts of a letter from General Gage in
reply.
“SIR,—To the glory of civilized nations, humanity and war have been
compatible, and humanity to the subdued has 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 law 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 intelligence from your army would justify severe recriminations. I
understand there are of the King’s faithful subjects, taken some time
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 disquisition; give free operation
to truth, and punish those who deceive and misrepresent; and not only
the effects, but the cause, of this unhappy conflict will be removed.
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 of the dreadful consequences,” &c.
There were expressions in the foregoing letter well calculated to rouse
indignant feelings in the most temperate bosom. Had Washington been as
readily moved to transports of passion as some are pleased to represent
him, the _rebel_ and the _cord_ might readily have stung him to fury;
but with him, anger was checked in its impulses by higher energies, and
reined in to give a grander effect to the dictates of his judgment. The
following was his noble and dignified reply to General Gage:
“I addressed you, sir, on the 11th instant, in terms which gave the
fairest scope for that humanity and politeness which were supposed to
form a part of your character. I remonstrated with you on the unworthy
treatment shown 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-eminent; whether our virtuous citizens, whom the hand of
tyranny has forced into arms to defend their wives, their children and
their property, or the merciless 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 of human nature give me over you; much less shall I
stoop to retort and invective; but the intelligence you say you have
received from our army requires a reply. I have taken time, sir, to make
a strict inquiry, and find it has not the least foundation in truth. Not
only your officers and soldiers have been treated with the tenderness
due to fellow-citizens and brethren, but even those execrable
parricides, whose counsels and aid have deluged their country with
blood, have been protected from the fury of a justly enraged people. Far
from compelling or permitting their assistance, I am embarrassed with
the numbers who crowd to our camp, animated with the purest principles
of virtue and love to their country. * * * * * * * *
“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, too, appeal, 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 for ever.
If your officers, our prisoners, receive a treatment from me different
from that which I wished to show them, they and you will remember the
occasion of it.”
We have given these letters of Washington almost entire, for they
contain his manifesto as commander-in-chief of the armies of the
Revolution; setting forth the opinions and motives by which he was
governed, and the principles on which hostilities on his part would be
conducted. It was planting with the pen, that standard which was to be
maintained by the sword.
In conformity with the threat conveyed in the latter part of his letter,
Washington issued orders that British officers at Watertown and Cape
Ann, who were at large on parole, should be confined in Northampton
jail; explaining to them that this conduct, which might appear to them
harsh and cruel, was contrary to his disposition, but according to the
rule of treatment observed by General Gage toward the American prisoners
in his hands; making no distinction of rank. Circumstances, of which we
have no explanation, induced subsequently a revocation of this order;
the officers were permitted to remain as before, at large upon parole,
experiencing every indulgence and civility consistent with their
security.