7425. RETALIATION, Effective.—
The
numbers of our countrymen betrayed into the
hands of the enemy by the treachery, cowardice
or incompetence of our high officers, reduce us
to the humiliating necessity of acquiescing in
the brutal conduct observed towards them.
When, during the last war, I put Governor
Hamilton and Major Hay into a dungeon and
in irons for having themselves personally done
the same to the American prisoners who had
fallen into their hands, and was threatened
with retaliation by Phillips, then returned to
New York, I declared to him I would load ten
of their Saratoga prisoners (then under my care
and within half a dozen miles of my house) with
double irons for every American they should
misuse under pretence of retaliation, and it
put an end to the practice. But the ten for
one are now with them.—
To William Duane. Washington ed. vi, 211.
(M.
Sep. 1813)
