mselves prisoners-of-war. To this Burgoyne answered:--"This article
is inadmissible in every extremity: sooner than the army will consent to
ground their aims in their encampment, they will rush on the enemy, with
a determination to take no quarter." In the end, after much negotiation,
a convention was settled, which imported, that Burgoyne's troops were to
march out of the camp, with all the honours of war, to the verge of the
Hudson River, where their arms and artillery were to be left; that a
free passage should be granted the troops to Great Britain, on condition
of their not serving again in America; that if any cartel should take
place by which Burgoyne's army, or any part of it, should be exchanged,
the foregoing article should be void, so far as that exchange extended;
that care should be taken for the subsistence of the British troops
till they should be embarked; that all officers should deliver up their
carriages, bat-horses, &c, but that their baggage should be free from
molestation; that the officers should not be separated from the men,
and should be quartered according to their rank; that all the troops,
of whatever country they might be, should be included in the above
articles; that all Canadians, and persons belonging to the Canadian
establishment, should be permitted to return to Canada, should be
conducted to the first British post on Lake George, should be treated in
all respects like the rest of the army, and should be bound by the same
condition of not serving during the present contest; that passports
should be granted for three officers to carry despatches to Sir Guy
Carleton, in Canada, and to the government of Great Britain by way of
New York; that all officers, during their stay at Boston, should be
admitted to parole, and to wear their side-arms; that the army might
send to Canada for their clothing and other baggage; and that these
articles should be signed and exchanged on the following morning, and
the troops should march out of their intrenchments in the afternoon.
These were more favourable terms than Burgoyne and his troops had a
right to expect; and they appear to have been granted for a twofold
reason--first, because Gates was fearful of provoking the despair of
well-disciplined troops; and secondly, because he almost heard the roar
of Clinton's artillery lower down the Hudson. The convention was signed
at the appointed time, and on the afternoon of the 17th of October the
troops march