There were several other prison ships, as well as the sugar-house prison in the city, whose histories ought to be better known than they are. I say this not from any sort of enmity to the British nation, for I have none. I respect the British nation; as will be evident from the views I have given of her genius and institutions in the course of this work. I would at all times render that nation every service consistent with my duty to my own; and surely it is worthy of her magnanimity to consider as a real service every true information given her relative to the crimes of her agents in distant countries. These crimes are as contrary to the spirit of the nation at home as they are to the temper of her laws. ↩
General Burgoyne had gained some celebrity by his pen, as well as by his sword, previous to the American war. He was author of the comedy called The Heiress, and of some other theatrical pieces which had been well received on the London theatres. ↩
The water of Lake George was held in particular veneration by the French Catholics of Canada. Of this they formerly made their holy water, which was carried and distributed to the churches through the province and probably produced part of the revenues of the clergy. This water is said to have been chosen for the purpose on account of its extreme clearness. The lake was called Lac du Saint Sacrement. ↩
This was General Sir John Johnson, an American royalist in the British service. He was the son of Sir William Johnson, who had been a rich proprietor and inhabitant in the Mohawk country in the colony of New York, and had been employed by the king as superintendant of Indian affairs. Sir William had married a Mohawk savage wife; and it was supposed that the great influence which he had long exercised over that and the neighboring tribes must have descended to his son. It was on this account that he was employed on the expedition of Burgoyne, in which he had the rank of brigadier general and the special direction of the savages. ↩
General Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, was the British governor of Canada and superintendant of Indian affairs at the time of Burgoyne’s campaign. Having great influence with the warlike tribes who inhabited the west of Canada and the borders of the lakes, he was ordered by the minister to adopt the barbarous and unjustifiable measure of arming and bringing them into the king’s service in aid of this expedition.
This was doubtless done with the consent of Burgoyne, though he seems to have been apprehensive of the difficulty of managing a race of men whose manners were so ferocious and whose motives to action must have been so different from those of the principal parties in the war. Burgoyne, in his narrative of this campaign, informs us that he took precautions to discourage that inhuman mode of warfare which had been customary among those savages. He ordered them to kill none but such persons as they should find in arms fighting against the king’s troops; to spare old men, women, children and prisoners, and not to scalp any but such as they should kill in open war. He intimated to them that he should not pay for any scalps but those thus taken from enemies killed in arms.
It is unfortunate for the reputation of the general and of his government, that they did not reflect on the futility of such an order and the improbability of its being executed. A certain price was offered for scalps; the savages must know that in a bag of scalps, packed and dried and brought into camp and counted out before the commissary to receive payment, it would be impossible to distinguish the political opinions or the occupation, age or sex of the heads to which they had belonged; it could not be ascertained whether they had been taken from Americans or British, whigs or tories, soldiers killed in arms or killed after they had resigned their arms, militia men or peasants, old or young, male or female.
The event proved the deplorable policy of employing such auxiliaries, especially in such multitudes as were brought together on this occasion. No sooner did hostilities begin between the two armies than these people, who could have no knowledge of the cause nor affection for either party, and whose only object was plunder and pay, began their indiscriminate and ungovernable ravages on both sides. They robbed and murdered peasants, whether royalists or others; men, women, children, straggling and wounded soldiers of both armies. The tragical catastrophe of a young lady of the name of Macrea, whose story is almost literally detailed in the foregoing paragraphs of the text, is well known. It made a great impression on the public mind at the time, both in England and America.
General Carleton, in the preceding campaigns, when the war was carried into Canada, had been applauded for his humanity in the treatment of prisoners. But the part he took in this measure of associating the savages in the operations of the British army was a stain upon his character; and the measure was highly detrimental to the royal cause, on account of the general indignation it excited through the country. ↩
The assumed right of kings or that supreme authority which one man exercises over a nation, and for which he is not held accountable, has been contended for on various grounds. It has been sometimes called the right of conquest; in which is involved the absolute disposal of the lives and labors of the
