their lives in Rome, was peaceably effected in the United States, by the legal tender of these depreciating bills. The poor became rich, and the rich became poor. Money lenders, and they whose circumstances enabled them to give credit, were essentially injured. All that the money lost in its value was so much taken from their capital; but the active and industrious indemnified themselves, by conforming the price of their services to the present state of the depreciation. The experience of this time inculcated on youth two salutary lessons; the impolicy of depending on paternal acquisitions, and the necessity of their own exertions. They who were in debt, and possessed property of any kind, could easily make the latter extinguish the former. Every thing that was useful, when brought to market, readily found a purchaser. A few cattle would pay for a comfortable house; and a good horse for an improved plantation. A small part of the productions of a farm would discharge the long outstanding accounts, due from its owner. The dreams of the golden age were realised to the poor man and the debtor; but unfortunately what these gained, was just so much taken from others.

The evils of depreciation did not terminate with the war. That the helpless part of the community were legislatively deprived of their property, was among the lesser evils, which resulted from the legal tender of the depreciated bills of credit. The iniquity of the laws estranged the minds of many of the citizens, from the habits and love of justice.

The nature of obligations was so far changed, that he was reckoned the honest man, who, from principle, delayed to pay his debts. The mounds which government had erected, to secure the observance of honesty, in the commercial intercourse of man with man, were broken down. Time and industry soon repaired the losses of property, which the citizens sustained during the war; but both, for a long time, failed in effacing the taint which was then communicated to their principles.*

* This was written in 1778, since when a new constitution, good laws, and a vigorous administration of justice, have effected a considerable amelioration in the morals of the inhabitants.

APPENDIX No. V.

Of the treatment of Prisoners, and of the Distresses of the Inha

bitants.

MANY circumstances concurred to make the American war particularly calamitous. It was originally a civil war, in the estimation of both parties, and a rebellion to its termination, in the opinion of one of them. Unfortunately for mankind, doubts have been entertained of the obligatory force of the law of nations in such cases. The refinement of modern ages has stripped war of half its horrors; but the systems of some illiberal men have tended to re-produce the barbarism of gothic times, by withholding the benefits of that refinement from those who engage in revolutions. An enlightened philanthropist embraces the whole human race, and inquires not whether an object of distress is or is not an unit of an acknowledged nation. It is sufficient that he is a child of the same common parent, and capable of happiness or misery. The prevalence of such a temper would have greatly lessened the calamities of the American war; but while, from contracted policy, unfortunate captives were considered as not entitled to the treatment of prisoners, they were often doomed, without being guilty, to suffer the punishment due to criminals.

The first American prisoners were taken on the 17th of June, 1775. These were thrown, indiscriminately, into the jail at Boston, without any consideration of their rank. Washington wrote to general Gage on this subject. The latter answered, by asserting that the prisoners had been treated with care and kindness, though indiscriminately, "as he acknowledged no rank that was not derived from the king." Washington replied: "you affect, sir, to despise all rank not derived from the same source with your own. I cannot conceive one more honourable, than that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power."

General Carleton, during his command, conducted towards the American prisoners, with a degree of humanity, that reflected great honour on his character. Before he com

menced his operations on the lakes, in 1776, he shipped off those who were officers, for New England; but previously supplied them with every thing requisite to make their voyage comfortable. The other prisoners, amounting to 800, were sent home by a flag, after exacting an oath from them, not to serve during the war unless exchanged. Many of them, being almost naked, were comfortably cloathed by his orders, previously to their being sent off.

The capture of general Lee proved calamitous to several individuals. Six Hessian field officers were offered in exchange for him; but this was refused. It was said by the British, that Lee was a deserter from their service, and as such could not expect the indulgences usually given to prisoners of war. The Americans replied, that, as he had resigned his British commission, previously to his accepting one from the Americans, he could not be considered as a deserter. He was nevertheless confined, watched, and guarded. Congress thereupon resolved, "that general Washington be directed to inform general Howe, that, should the proffered exchange of general Lee for six field officers not be accepted, and the treatment of him as above-mentioned be continued, the principles of retaliation should occasion five of the said Hessian field officers, together with lieutenant colonel Archibald Campbell, to be detained, in order that the said treatment, which general Lee received, should be exactly inflicted on their persons." The Campbell, thus designated as the subject of retaliation, was a humane man, and a meritorious officer, who had been captured by some of the Massachusetts privateers near Boston, whither, from the want of information, he was proceeding, soon after the British had evacuated it. The above act of congress was forwarded to Massachusetts, with a request, that they would detain lieutenant colonel Campbell, and keep him in safe custody, till the further order of congress. The council of Massachusetts exceeded this request, and sent him to Concord jail, where he was lodged in a filthy, cold, and gloomy dungeon, of twelve or thirteen feet square. The attendance of a single servant on his person was denied him, and every visit from a friend refused.

The prisoners, captured by sir William Howe, in 1776, amounted to many hundreds. The officers were admitted to parole, and had some waste houses assigned to them as quarters; but the privates were shut up, in the coldest season of the year, in churches, sugar-houses, and such large open buildings. The severity of the weather, and the rigour of their treatment, occasioned the death of some hundreds of these unfortunate men. The filth of the places of their confinement, in consequence of fluxes which prevailed among them, was both offensive and dangerous. Seven dead bodies have been seen in one building, at one time, and all lying in a situation shocking to humanity. The provisions served out to them were deficient in quantity, and of an unwholesome quality. These suffering prisoners were generally pressed to enter into the British service; but hundreds submitted to death, rather than procure an amelioration of their circumstances, by enlisting with the enemies of their country. After Washington's successes at Trenton and Princeton, the American prisoners fared somewhat better. Those who survived were ordered to be sent out for exchange; but some of them fell down dead in the streets, while attempting to walk to the vessels. Others were so emaciated, that their appearance was horrible. A speedy death closed the scene with many.

The American board of war, in 1777, after conferring with Mr. Boudinot, their commissary-general of prisoners, and examining evidences produced by him, reported among other things, that there were 900 privates and 500 officers of the American army, prisoners in the city of New York, and about 500 privates and 50 officers prisoners in Philadelphia; that since the beginning of October all these prisoners, both officers and privates, had been confined in prison ships or the provost; that, from the best evidence the subject could admit of, the general allowance of prisoners, at most did not exceed four ounces of meat per day, often so damaged as not to be eatable; that it had been a common practice with the British, on a prisoner's being first captured, to keep him three, four, or five days without a morsel of meat, and then to tempt him to enlist, to save his life; and that there were

numerous instances of prisoners of war perishing, in all the agonies of hunger."

About this time, there was a meeting of merchants in London, for the purpose of raising a sum of money to relieve the distresses of the American prisoners, then in England. The sum subscribed for that purpose amounted, in two months, to 4647. 158. Thus while human nature was dishonoured by the cruelties of some of the British in America, there was a laudable display of the benevolence of others, of the same nation, in Europe. The American sailors, when captured by the British, suffered more than even the soldiers, who fell into their hands. The former were confined on board prison ships. They were there crowded together in such numbers, and their accommodations were so wretched, that diseases broke out and swept them off, under circumstances sufficient to excite compassion in breasts of the least sensibility. It has been asserted, on as good evidence as the case will admit, that, in the last six years of the war, upwards of eleven thousand persons died on board the Jersey, one of these prison ships, which was stationed in East River, near New York. On many of these, the rights of sepulture were never, or but very imperfectly conferred. Long after the war ended, their bones lay whitening in the sun, on the shores of Long-Island. Some few years since, a benevolent society, of the city of New York, assembled, went in procession to the Wallabout, in the vicinity of which the bones were scattered, collected them into one pile, and directed a handsome ossary to be erected over them. This neat edifice now stands on the hill, in sight of the wreck of the Jersey, yet visible at low tide, a monument to the memory of thousands, who perished in the defence of American independence. At the same time, it commemorates their sufferings, the cruelty of Britons, and the gratitude of Americans.

The operation of treason laws added to the calamities of the war. Individuals on both sides, while they were doing no more than they supposed to be their duty, were involved in the penal consequences of capital crimes. The Americans, in conformity to the usual policy of nations, demanded the