“You affect, sir, to despise all rank not derived from the same source with your own.  I cannot conceive one more honorable than that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power.  Far from making it a plea for cruelty, a mind of true magnanimity and enlarged ideas would comprehend and respect it.”

Washington had grasped instinctively the general truth that Englishmen are prone to mistake civility for servility, and become offensive, whereas if they are treated with indifference, rebuke, or even rudeness, they are apt to be respectful and polite.  He was obliged to go over the same ground with Sir William Howe, a little later, and still more sharply; and this matter of prisoners recurred, although at longer and longer intervals, throughout the war.  But as the British generals saw their officers go to jail, and found that their impudence and assumption were met by keen reproofs, they gradually comprehended that Washington was not a man to be trifled with, and that in him was a pride and dignity out-topping theirs and far stronger, because grounded on responsibility borne and work done, and on the deep sense of a great and righteous cause.

It was probably a pleasure and a relief to give to Gage and Sir William Howe a little instruction in military behavior and general good manners, but there was nothing save infinite vexation in dealing with the difficulties arising on the American side of the line.  As the days shortened and the leaves fell, Washington saw before him a New England winter, with no clothing and no money for his troops.  Through long letters to Congress, and strenuous personal efforts, these wants were somehow supplied.  Then the men began to get restless and homesick, and both privates and officers would disappear to their farms, which Washington, always impatient of wrongdoing, styled “base and pernicious conduct,” and punished accordingly.  By and by the terms of enlistment ran out and the regiments began to melt away even before the proper date.  Recruiting was carried on slowly and with difficulty, new levies were tardy in coming in, and Congress could not be persuaded to stop limited enlistments.  Still the task was done.  The old army departed and a new one arose in its place, the posts were strengthened and ammunition secured.

Among these reinforcements came some Virginia riflemen, and it must have warmed Washington’s heart to see once more these brave and hardy fighters in the familiar hunting shirt and leggins.  They certainly made him warm in a very different sense by getting into a rough-and-tumble fight one winter’s day with some Marblehead fishermen.  The quarrel was at its height, when suddenly into the brawl rode the commander-in-chief.  He quickly dismounted, seized two of the combatants, shook them, berated them, if tradition may be trusted, for their local jealousies, and so with strong arm quelled the disturbance.