“I am no longer on General Washington’s staff” answered Brereton, “so I know not his expectations.”
“From all I hear of him,” said the general, “he is not a man to use a triumph ungenerously. He fought bravely under the British standards, and surely will not now seek to bring unnecessary shame on them.” Seating himself at the table, he wrote a few lines, which he folded and sealed. “Will you not, use your influence with him to grant us the customary honours, and spare the officers from the disgrace of giving up their side arms?”
“I no longer possess influence with or the confidence of his Excellency,” replied Brereton, gravely; “but he is a generous man, and I predict will not push his advantage merely for your humiliation.”
“Will he not forbear making our surrender a spectacle?”
“If the talk of the camp be of value, my Lord, ’t is said you are to be granted the exact terms you allowed to General Lincoln at Savannah; and you yourself cannot but acknowledge the justice of such treatment.”
“’T was not I who dictated the terms of that surrender.”
“Your observation, my Lord, forces the reply that ’t is a nation, not an individual, we are fighting.”
The proud face of the British general worked for a moment in the intensity of his emotion. “We have no right to complain that we receive measure for measure,” he said; “and yet sir, though the lex talionis may be justified, it makes it none the less bitter.”
Colonel Brereton took the letter, his eyes were blindfolded again, and he was led back beyond the lines.
With the expiration of the two hours, the firing was not resumed; and all that day and the next flags were passing and repassing between the lines, with the result that on the afternoon of the latter, commissioners met at the Moore house and drew up the terms of capitulation, which were signed that evening.