It belong to a general narrative history of moderate for ns persecutio individual of cases the in as is sufficient to say that, ess mercilessn and activity with d perpetrate were they political belief, by both sides-- with the important distinction, however, that while the offenses committed by the American soldiers were the acts of individuals or small detachments in defiance of very strict army regulations the crimes of the invading troops were wholly unrestrained , and if indeed they were not tacitly licensed. It was well understood strong the fact is recognized by all historians (not excepting those of officers, British bias), that the German mercenaries, privates as well as

FORT

WASHINGTON'S

FALL

4:03

in accepting the employment of the king of England were encouraged to believe that they cm mid enrich themselves in America by plundering the population, and wherever they went their excesses were unlimited. The British soldiery were hardly less scrupulous or cruel; and both British and Germans robbed, killed, burned, and devastated the land with little discrimination between Tory and patriot where the object was the gratification of their own greed or passions. In their vindictive fury against the patriots the British went farther than their German hirelings. The following, from a letter written from Peekskill, War: January 19, 1777, reads like a chapter from the Thirty Years' General Howe has discharged all the privates who were prisoners in New York ; one-half he sent to the world of spirits for want of food. The other he hath sent to warn their countrymen of the danger of falling into his hands, and so convince them, by ocular demonstration, that it is infinitely better to be slain in battle than to be taken prisoners by British brutes, whose tender mercies are cruelty. But it is not the prisoners alone who felt the effects of British inhumanity.