to me, your prisoners will feel its effects. But if kindness
and humanity are shown to ours, I shall with pleasure consider those
in our hands only as unfortunate, and they shall receive from me that
treatment to which the unfortunate are ever entitled."

This is a letter worthy of a little study. The affair does not look
very important now, but it went then to the roots of things; for this
letter would go out to the world, and America and the American cause
would be judged by their leader. A little bluster or ferocity, any
fine writing, or any absurdity, and the world would have sneered,
condemned, or laughed. But no man could read this letter and fail to
perceive that here was dignity and force, justice and sense, with just
a touch of pathos and eloquence to recommend it to the heart. Men
might differ with the writer, but they could neither laugh at him nor
set him aside.

Gage replied after his kind. He was an inconsiderable person, dull
and well meaning, intended for the command of a garrison town,
and terribly twisted and torn by the great events in which he was
momentarily caught. His masters were stupid and arrogant, and he
imitated them with perfect success, except that arrogance with him
dwindled to impertinence. He answered Washington's letter with denials
and recriminations, lectured the American general on the political
situation, and talked about "usurped authority," "rebels,"
"criminals," and persons destined to the "cord." Washington, being a
man of his word, proceeded to put some English prisoners into jail,
and then wrote a second note, giving Gage a little lesson in manners,
with the vain hope of making him see that gentlemen did not scold
and vituperate because they fought. He restated his case calmly
and coolly, as before, informed Gage that he had investigated the
counter-charge of cruelty and found it without any foundation, and
then continued: "You advise me to give free operation to truth, and
to punish misrepresentation and falsehood. If experience stamps value
upon counsel, yours must have a weight which few can claim. You best
can tell how far the convulsion, which has brought such ruin on both
countries, and shaken the mighty empire of Britain to its foundation,
may be traced to these malignant causes.

"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