[FN-1] "Although General Carleton had acquiesced in the harsh treatment of Ethan Allen, yet the prisoners who fell into his hands met with usage in every respect as good as that of the British soldiers, except in the necessary restraints of confinement. This was declared in a letter to Washington from Major Meigs, when he returned on his parole the Summer following. The soldiers were confined in the Jesuits' College, and the officers in the Seminary. The latter, after the siege was raised, had permission to walk in a large garden adjoining their quarters. Major Meigs left three hundred prisoners in Quebec about the middle of May. When they were released for exchange, General Carleton supplied them with articles of clothing, in which they were deficient. It was said, that when some of his officers spoke to him of this act, as an unusual degree of lenity toward prisoners of war, he replied,—'Since we have tried in vain to make them acknowledge us as brothers, let us at least send them away disposed to regard us as first cousins.' Having been informed that many persons suffering from wounds and various disorders were concealed in the woods and obscure places, fearing that if they appeared openly they would be seized as prisoners and severely treated; he issued a proclamation commanding the militia officers to search for such persons, bring them to the general hospital, and procure for them all necessary relief at the public charge. He also invited all such persons to come forward voluntarily, and receive the assistance they needed; assuring them, 'that as soon as their health should be restored, they should have free liberty to return to their respective provinces.'"—Sparks,
[FN-2] Conversations of the author with the venerable Colonel Trumbull, while these pages were under revision.
Nor were the difficulties enumerated, all which the officers had to encounter. The spirit of disaffection was far more extensive than those who are left to contemplate the scenes through which their fathers passed, and the discouragements against which they were compelled to struggle, have been wont to suppose. The burden of many of General Schuyler's letters, and also the letters of other officers, during the whole of this season, was the frequency of desertions to the ranks of the enemy.
Glancing for a moment at the situation of affairs at the south, the gloom of the picture is somewhat relieved. The expedition of General Clinton and Sir Peter Parker, for the reduction of Charleston, had signally failed. The defence of the fort bearing his own name, by Colonel Moultrie, was one of the most gallant exploits of the whole contest, and served to lighten the despondency that had been produced by the disasters we have been sketching at the north. It was at this place that the celebrated Sergeant Jasper signalized himself, when the flag-staff was shot away, by leaping from the parapet of the fort upon the beach, seizing the flag, and, amid the incessant firing of the fleet, mounting, and again placing it on the rampart. [FN]
[FN] Garden's Anecdotes of the American Revolution.
But the grand event of the year, the transactions of which are now under review, was the Declaration of Independence, a motion for which was submitted in Congress by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, on the 7th of June, and the Declaration itself solemnly adopted on the 4th of July. This measure at once cut off all hope of reconciliation with the parent country, and all prospect of a termination of the war, unless by the complete triumph in arms of one party or the other. Such a declaration was an event not originally anticipated, even if desired, by the mass of the people; although it had unquestionably, and from the first, entered into the calculations of the daring master spirits of the movement in Boston. It had furthermore been greatly accelerated by the conduct of the British government itself, during the preceding session of Parliament, by act of which the Americans had been declared out of the Royal protection; so widely mistaken had been the Congress of the preceding year, which had adjourned with strong hopes that the differences between the two countries would soon be adjusted to their mutual satisfaction. [FN] At the same time the parent government was putting forth its utmost energies to crush the Colonies at a blow. For this purpose, 25,000 British troops were to be employed, in addition to 17,000 German mercenaries purchased from the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Count of Hanaa. These troops, together with the Canadian recruits, the American loyalists, and the Indians, it was intended should constitute an invading force of 55,000 men. With such preparations in prospect against them, it was no time for inactivity on the part of the Colonists; and having by the Declaration thrown away the scabbard of the sword that had been drawn fifteen months before, there was no alternative but resistance to the end.
[FN] Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. i, Chap. iv.