University of Virginia Library

“We have not conducted the war unrighteously and cruelly. War, at its best, is an awful curse, and brings with it untold loss of blood and treasure, and the inevitable suffering of the innocent. The exigencies of the war will always require the burning of farms, and even of villages, which are used by the enemy to harass the opposing army and harbour combatants and ammunition; terrible as the farm-burning has been, it was only ordered when absolutely necessary by a British General whose character for humanity and Godliness is beyond dispute.”—The Bishop of Liverpool.

“Never before has anything approaching to such wholesale and reckless destruction or abduction of families been enacted by a British army. . . . So ignorant of facts, or so blunted have become the minds of our people on the subject of the women and children that they have come to believe that the Press is justified in extolling the great kindness and liberality which have been shown to these poor prisoners.” —Sir Neville Chamberlain.