“Let your opinion, sir, of the principle which actuates them be what it may, they suppose that they act from the noblest of all principles, a love of freedom and their country.  But political principles, I conceive, are foreign to this point.  The obligations arising from the rights of humanity and claims of rank are universally binding and extensive, except in case of retaliation.  These, I should have hoped, would have dictated a more tender treatment of those individuals whom chance or war had put in your power.  Nor can I forbear suggesting its fatal tendency to widen that unhappy breach which you, and those ministers under whom you act, have repeatedly declared your wish is to see forever closed.

“My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you, that for the future I shall regulate all my conduct towards those gentlemen who are or may be in our possession, exactly by the rule you shall observe towards those of ours now in your custody.

“If severity and hardship mark the line of your conduct, painful as it may be 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.