The British were in entire command of the sea. They were continually landing, from their ships, at unprotected points, and inflicting a vast amount of injury. It was impossible to prevent this. The ocean was, to these foes, what the forest had been to the savage. One or two ships would suddenly appear, send an armed party on shore in their boats, plunder, burn, and kill at their pleasure, and long before any military force could be assembled to resist them, their marauding fleet would have disappeared beyond the horizon of the sea.
Washington had soon cut off all possible communication between the British, in Boston, and the back country. He ordered all the live stock, on the coast, to be driven into the interior, beyond the reach of plundering parties from the men-of-war’s boats. Famine began to prevail in Boston. But the position of the American army was still perilous in the highest degree. They were, notwithstanding Washington’s most intense endeavor, almost without ammunition. The supply was reduced, as we have said, to nine cartridges to a man. And thus for a fortnight they boldly faced the well-supplied armies of Great Britain. At length a partial supply from New Jersey put an end to this fearful risk.
General Gage was treating his American prisoner as outlaws, throwing them indiscriminately into common jails, and treating them with the utmost barbarity. Washington was personally acquainted with Gage. He had led the advance-guard in Braddock’s defeat. Washington wrote to him, in respectful but earnest terms, remonstrating against this inhumanity, and stating that, if it were continued, he should be under the very painful necessity of retaliating.
Gates returned a defiant and insolent reply, in which he spoke of the American patriots as rebels who, by the laws of England, were “destined to the cord, and that he acknowledged no rank which was not derived from the king.”[95]
Washington restrained his indignation, and again wrote to his unmannerly foe, in the courteous language of a gentleman. In this admirable letter he said:
“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.
“Not only your officers and soldiers have been treated with the tenderness due to fellow-citizens, 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.
“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.
“I shall now, sir, close my correspondence with you, perhaps forever. If your officers, our prisoners, receive a treatment from me different from that I wish to show them, they and you will remember the occasion of it.”[96]
In conformity with these views Washington issued orders that the British officers who were at large on parole, should be confined in Northampton jail. But his humane heart recoiled from punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. The order was revoked, and they remained at large, as before.[97]