Note 473 — BOOK VI[427]

Sir Charles Asgill (1760-1823), an English general serving under Cornwallis. He was taken prisoner by the insurgents and picked out by lot to be shot by way of reprisals. He was saved through the intervention of the French Government, and an act of the American Congress revoked the sentence of death. Asgill visited Versailles to thank Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who had actively interceded on his behalf. The episode furnished a subject for a number of popular novels and plays.—B.