Note 110 — Chapter XXXVI

In connection with these transactions, we have an illustration of the uniform and generous treatment of Loyalists by General Washington, although he once gave expression to ill-feeling towards them at Boston in the spring of 1775; for says Lord Mahon:

"Cornwallis, on his part, was honourably anxious to protect from harm the native Loyalists within his lines; and he proposed, as the tenth Article, that no such men were to be punished on account of having joined the British army. Washington wrote in reply: 'This cannot be assented to, being altogether of civil resort.' Means were found, however, with Washington's connivance, to obtain the same object in another form. It was stipulated that, immediately after the capitulation, the Bonetta sloop-of-war was to sail for New York, unsearched, with despatches from Lord Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton, and with as many soldiers on board as he should think fit to send; provided only that the vessel was returned, and that the soldiers were accounted for as prisoners in a future exchange. By this expedient was the British chief enabled to secure a safe conduct for his American adherents." (Lord Mahon's History, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lxiv., p. 179.)