The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

AET. 43.] LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 161
and brought some of them away prisoners. Whether
this act was consistent or not with the customary rules
of warfare, it was severely reprimanded by Washington,
who immediately set the prisoners at liberty, treated
them with the greatest kindness, restored all the property that had been taken, and provided the best.means
in his power to send them back to their homes.
The burning of Falmouth, an act of personal malice
and cruel wantonness on the part of a British naval
officer, and the threats of the enemy that the same fate
should fall upon other seaport towns, produced consternation, and the most pressing requests to General
Washington for assistance in powder, arms, and troops.
Again he was compelled, by the necessities of his own
situation, to withhold the relief so strenuously solicited.
His sympathies were keenly affected by their sufferings,
and his popularity was jeoparded by the refusal; yet in
this case, as in all others, a stern sense of duty subdued
his private feelings and fortified his judgment.
When the news of the battle of Bunker's Hill reached the British cabinet, General Gage was recalled, "in
order to give his Majesty exact information of every
thing, and suggest such matters as his knowledge and
experience of the service enabled him to furnish." In
the dearly bought victory at Bunker's Hill he had made
a discovery, which seems to have been not less astonishing to himself, than mortifying to the ministers.
"The trials we have had," said he, in a letter to Lord
Dartmouth, "show the rebels are not the despicable
rabble too many have supposed them to be." In the
opinion of the ministers, this intelligence showed likewise, that General Gage had been duped by ill advisers
or his own ignorance, and that, either from obstinacy,
want of address, or incapacity, he was not competent
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