"Well, we are 'rebels,' you know," replied Reed sarcastically, "and General Gage thinks that 'rebels' have no claim upon his clemency."
"Cruelty to prisoners is not confined to General Gage," responded Washington. "There is no doubt that the king holds Allen [Ethan] in irons, and his fellow-captives, which is treating prisoners of war as savages do."
Ethan Allen was the famous patriot who led two hundred and thirty men against Fort Ticonderoga, and captured it in May, 1775. He surprised the commander, and demanded an immediate surrender.
"By whose authority do you make this demand?" inquired the officer in charge.
"In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" shouted Allen.
He was captured by General Prescott in Canada.
"Were the king's forces in Boston to sally forth and conquer our army, the rules of civilized warfare would be of no account to them, I am thinking;" suggested Mr. Reed. "It behooves us to keep out of their clutches, or die in the attempt."
The cruelty of British officers to prisoners was the subject of frequent discussion between Washington and his advisers, and finally he wrote to General Gage as follows:
"I understand 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.... 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.... 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 toward those of ours now in your custody.