Note 104 — THE FIRST POETIC PERIOD
Reading edition
On June 11, Washington had written Gage, among other things, "that the officers engaged in the cause of liberty and their country, who by the fortune of war had fallen into your hands, have been thrown indiscriminately into a common gaol appropriated for felons," and threatening retaliation in like cases, "exactly by the rule you shall observe towards those of ours now in your custody." To this Gage replied, on the 13th: "Britons, ever pre-eminent in mercy, have outgone common examples, and overlooked the criminal in the captive. Upon these principles your prisoners, whose lives, by the law of the land, are destined to the cord, have hitherto been treated with care and kindness," &c.—Duyckinck.