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.

PARTII.] THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 293
TO SIR WILLIAM HOWVE.
Head-Quarters, 22 March, 1778.
SIR,
You are under a mistake as to the rank of Mr. Ethan
Allen, which is only that of lieutenant-colonel; and
as such he has been returned and considered by your
commissary, Mr. Loring. The fact truly is, to the best
of my information, that, at the time of his capture, he
had an appointment as lieutenant-colonel from the State
of New York, in a regiment commanded by Colonel
Warner. Though he may have been called Colonel in
some letters of mine, it was either through misconception at the time, or by a concise and familiar mode of
expression, which frequently applies that term to a
lieutenant-colonel. I shall, therefore, expect him in
exchange for Mr. Campbell.*
The conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Brooks, in detaining John Miller, requires neither palliation nor excuse. I justify and approve it. There is nothing so
sacred in the character of the King's trumpeter, even
when sanctified by a flag, as to alter the nature of
things, or to consecrate infidelity and guilt. He was a
deserter from the army under my command; and, what~ This conjecture, as to Ethan Allen's rank, is not precisely accurate.
He was not commissioned in the regiment of Green Mountain Boys, as
it was called, which was raised by the authority of New York, in the
summer of 1775, and commanded by Seth Warner, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. The only commission, which Ethan Allen had received, was that conferred upon him by the committees of Bennington
and the adjoining settlements before the war, when the people of the
Green Mountains resolved to take up arms in defence of their rights
against what they deemed the unjust encroachments of the New York
government, in claiming and seizing their lands. He was then made
their military leader, with the rank of colonel-commandant. - See SPARaiS'S
Life of Ethan Allen, in The Library of J1merican Biography, Vol. 1.
pp. 246, 291.