7481. REVOLUTION (American), Gage's perfidy.—
Hostilities thus commenced
[at Lexington, &c.], on the part of the
ministerial army have been since by them pursued
without regard to faith or fame. The inhabitants
of the town of Boston, in order to
procure their enlargement, having entered into
treaty with General Gage, their Governor, it
was stipulated that the said inhabitants, having
first deposited their arms with their own magistrates,
should have liberty to depart from out
of the said town taking with them their other
effects. Their arms they accordingly delivered
in, and claimed the stipulated license of departing
with their effects. But in open violation
of plighted faith and honor, in defiance of
the sacred obligation of treaty which even
savage nations observe, their arms, deposited
with their own magistrates to be preserved as
their property, were immediately seized by a
body of armed men under orders from the said
General; the greater part of the inhabitants
were detained in the town, and the few permitted
to depart were compelled to leave their
most valuable effects behind. We leave the
world to its own reflections on this atrocious
perfidy.—
Declaration on Taking up Arms.
Ford ed., i, 471.
(July. 1775)
