[No.1.]

WILLIAM TUDOR TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.

August 23, 1775.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY: At the time I had the honour of your Excellency’s appointing me to the office of Judge Advocate to the Army, my unacquaintedness with the nature of the department rendered me an incompetent judge of its duties. The experience I have since had convinces me that I am engaged in a service extensive, laborious and important. I must therefore beg, Sir, your indulgence while I mention some particulars which, I presume, will satisfy your Excellency that the conclusion I may deduce from them is not unreasonable.

I have your Excellency’s orders, through the medium of the Adjutant-General, to attend every General Court-Martial, both those of the line and each Brigade, throughout the Army, and to see that there is a fair copy of the entire proceedings in each case made out, to be reported to the Commander-in-Chief. The number of offences made cognizable by a General Court-Martial only, the large Army here, and the extent of the camp, (ten miles at least,) in each quarter of which my duty demands my attendance, unitedly render my station arduous and difficult. The number of trials which have been reported to your Excellency within six weeks past will, I believe, justify this assertion.

It is not only expected that I give the proper orders for procuring the evidence, and putting all matters in such a train that the Court may have nothing else to do than to hear the witnesses and form a judgment, but that I also analyze the evidence and state the questions that are involved in it for the opinion of the Court. But I mean not to detain your Excellency by a tedious detail. It is sufficient to acquaint you that I am obliged to act as Advocate, Register and Clerk, for a stipend of twenty dollars a month, without the least assistance or a single perquisite of office.

In the British Army General Courts-Martial sit only in capital cases, or for the trial of commissioned officers. The Judge Advocate there is allowed ten shillings sterling per day, besides drawing pay as an officer. This duty is easy, because the strict discipline maintained among regular troops make General Courts-Martial but rare.

Almost every day since my appointment, a General Court-Martial has set in one or other part of the camp. A Court at Roxbury adjourned for six days successively, because my duty would not permit me to leave Cambridge. This must frequently be the case while I am without an assistant. I will no longer trespass on your Excellency’s time, than to beg that a representation of this office may be made from the Commander-in-Chief to the honourable Continental Congress, who, I am informed, were entirely unacquainted with the business of this department, especially in an American Army. The information they may receive from your Excellency on this subject, will doubtless prevail with them to affix a salary something more adequate to the service. Should they not, I shall be under a necessity of begging your Excellency’s permission to resign an employment, the duties of which leave me without an hour to call my own, and the pay of which will not afford a maintenance.

I am, with profound respect, your Excellency’s most obedient humble servant,

WILLIAM TUDOR.

His Excellency George Washington, Esq.

[No. 2.]

GENERAL WASHINGTON TO GENERAL GAGE.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, August 11, 1775.

SIR: I understand that the officers engaged in the cause of liberty and their Country, who, by the fortune of war, have fallen into your hands, have been thrown indiscriminately into a common jail appropriated for felons; that no consideration has been had for those of the most respectable rank, when languishing with wounds and sickness; and that some of them have been even amputated in this unworthy situation. Let your opinion, Sir, of the principle which actuates them be what it may, they suppose they act from the noblest of all principles—a love of freedom and their Country. But political opinions, 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 you wished to see forever closed.

My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I shall regulate 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.

I beg to be favoured with an answer as soon as possible, and am, Sir, your very humble servant,

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

His Excellency General Gage.

[No. 3.]

GENERAL GAGE TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.

Boston, August 13, 1775.

SIR: To the glory of civilized Nations, humanity and war have been compatible, and compassion to the subdued is become almost a general system. 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 laws of the land are destined to the cord, have hitherto been treated with care and kindness, and more comfortably lodged than the King’s Troops, in the hospitals, indiscriminately it is true, for I acknowledge no rank that is not derived from the King.

My intelligence from your Army would justify severe recrimination. I understand there are some of the King’s faithful subjects, taken some time since by the Rebels, labouring like negro slaves to gain their daily subsistence, or reduced to the wretched alternative to perish by famine, or take arms against their King and Country. Those who have made the treatment of the prisoners in my hands, or of your other friends in Boston, a pretence for such measures, found barbarity upon falsehood.

I would willingly hope, Sir, that the sentiments of liberality, which I have always believed you to possess, will be exerted to correct these misdoings. Be temperate in political disquisition, give free operation to truth, and punish those who deceive and misrepresent, and not only the effects, but the causes of this unhappy conflict will be removed. Should those under whose usurped authority you act, control such a disposition, and dare to call severity retaliation, to God, who knows all hearts, be the appeal for the dreadful consequences. I trust that British soldiers, asserting the rights of the state, the laws of the land, the being of the Constitution, will meet all events with becoming fortitude. They will court victory with the spirit their cause inspires, and from the same motive will find the patience of martyrs under misfortune.

Till I read your insinuations in regard to Ministers, I conceived that I had acted under the King, whose wishes, it is true, as well as those of his Ministers, and of every honest man, have been to see this unhappy breach forever closed; but, unfortunately for both Countries, those who long since projected the present crisis, and influence the councils of America, have views very distant from accommodation.

I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

THOMAS GAGE

George Washington, Esq.

[No. 4.]

GENERAL WASHINGTON TO GENERAL GAGE.

Head-Quarters, Cambridge, August 19, 1775.

SIR: I addressed you on the 11th instant in terms which gave the fairest scope for the exercise of that humanity and politeness which were supposed to form a part of your character. I remonstrated with you on the unworthy treatment shown to the officers and citizens of America whom the fortune of war, chance, or a mistaken confidence, had

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