Ethan Allen

“ Whether in the field or the council—whether at home, a freeman among the mountains of Vermont, or loaded with the manacles of despotism, in a foreign country, his spirit never quailed beneath the sneer of the tory, or the harsh threats of insolent authority. A stranger to fear, his opinions were ever given without disguise or hesitation: and, an enemy to oppression, he sought every opportunity to redress the wrongs of the oppressed. ”

“ The private soldiers, who were brought to New-York, were crowded into churches, and environed with slavish Hessian guards, a people of a strange language, who were sent to America for no other design but cruelty and desolation; and at others, by merciless Britons whose mode of communicating ideas being intelligible in this country, served only to tantalize and insult the helpless and perishing; but above all, the hellish delight and triumph of the tories over them, as they were dying by hundreds. ”

“ This was too much for me to bear as a spectator; for I saw the tories exulting over the dead bodies of their murdered countrymen. I have gone into the churches, and seen sundry of the prisoners in the agonies of death, in consequence of very hunger, and others speechless, and very near death, biting pieces of chips; others pleading for God's sake, for something to eat, and at the same time, shivering with the cold. ”

“ Your veteran soldiers are fallen in America, and your glory is departed. Be quiet and pay your debts, especially for the hire of the Hessians. There is no other way for you to get into credit again, but by reformation and plain honesty, which you have despised; for your power is by no means sufficient to support your vanity. I have had opportunity to see a great deal of' it, and felt its severe effects, and learned lessons of wisdom and policy, when I wore your heavy irons, and bore your bitter revilings and reproaches. ”

“ The integrity of the suffering prisoners is hardly credibly. Many hundreds, I am confident, submitted to death, rather than to enlist in the British service, which, I am informed, they most generally were pressed to do. I was astonished at the resolution of the two brothers particularly; it seems that they could not be stimulated to such exertions of heroism from ambition, as they were but obscure soldiers; strong indeed must the internal principle of virtue be, which supported them to brave death, and one of them went through the operation, as did many hundred others. ”

“ On the 7th of October, the armies came to a second action, in which the British lost General Frazer, with a great number of officers and men, and were driven within their lines. On the part of the Americans the loss was not great, but generals Lincoln and Arnold were wounded.
I know you have individuals, who still retain their virtue, and consequently their honor and humanity. Those I really pity, as they must more or less suffer in the calamity, in which the nation is plunged headlong; but as a nation I hate and despise you. ”

“ Virtue, wisdom and policy are in a national sense, always connected with power, or in other words, power is their offspring, and such power as is not directed by virtue, wisdom and policy never fails finally to destroy itself as yours has done.—It is so in the nature of things, and unfit that it would be otherwise; for if it was not so, vanity, injustice, and oppression, might reign triumphant forever.
* General Burgoyne, after collecting his forces and stores, crossed the Hudson with a view to penetrate to Albany. But the American army being reinforced daily, held him in check at Saratoga. ”

“ Bennington, March 25, 1779.
ETHAN ALLEN.
NARRATIVE.
Ever since I arrived at the state of manhood, and acquainted myself with the general history of mankind, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty. The history of nations, doomed to perpetual slavery, in consequence of yielding up to tyrants their natural-born liberties, I read with a sort of philosophical horror; so that the first systematical and bloody attempt at Lexington, to enslave America, thoroughly electrified my mind, and fully determined me to take part with my country. ”

“ I could not endure the thought that so worthy a friend to America should have his life stolen from him in such a mean, base, and scandalous manner, and that his family and friends should be bereaved of so great and desirable a blessing, as his further care, usefulness and example, might prove to them. ”

“ The cause, in which the British arms are thus exerted, applies to the most affecting interests of the human heart; and the military servants of the crown, at first called forth for the sole purpose of restoring the rights of the constitution, now combine with love of their country, and duty to their sovereign, the other extensive incitements which spring from a due sense of the general privileges of mankind. ”

“ Induced by a sense of duty to my country, and by the application of many of my worthy friends, some of whom are of the first characters, I have concluded to publish the following narrative of the extraordinary scenes of my captivity, and the discoveries which I made in the course of the same, of the cruel and relentless disposition and the behaviour of the enemy, towards the prisoners in their power; from which the state politician, and every gradation of character among the people, to the worthy tiller of the soil, may deduce such inferences as they shall think proper to carry into practice. ”

“ It was a common practice with the enemy, to convey the dead from these filthy places, in carts, to be slightly buried, and I have seen whole gangs of tories making derision, and exulting over the dead, saying, there goes another load of damned rebels. I have observed the British, soldiers to be full of their black-guard jokes, and vaunting on those occasions, but they appeared to me less malignant than tories.
The provision dealt out to the prisoners was by no means sufficient for the support of life. ”

“ Most of the residue, who reached their friends, having received their death wound, could not be restored by the assistance of physicians and friends; but like their brother prisoners, fell a sacrifice to the relentless and scientific barbarity of Britain. I took as much pains as my circumstances would admit of, to inform myself not only of matters of fact, but likewise of the very design and aims of General Howe and his council. ”

“ For I reasoned thus, that nothing was more common than for men to die with their friends around them, weeping and lamenting over them, but not able to help them, which was in reality not different in the consequence of it from such a death as I was apprehensive of; and, as death was the natural consequence of animal life to which the laws of nature subject mankind, to be timorous and uneasy as to the event and manner of it, was inconsistent with the character of a philosopher and soldier. ”

“ I have something of a smattering of philosophy, and understand human nature in all its stages tolerably well; am thoroughly acquainted with your national crimes, and assure you that they not only cry aloud for Heaven's vengeance, but excite mankind to rise up against you. ”

“ William Miller, a committee man, from West Chester county, and state of New York, was taken from his bed in the dead of the night by his tory neighbors, and was starved for three days and nights in an apartment of the same gaol; add to this the denial of fire, and that in a cold season of the year, in which time he walked day and night, to defend himself against the frost, and when he complained of such a reprehensible conduct, the word rebel or committee man was deemed by the enemy a sufficient atonement for any inhumanity that they could invent or inflict. ”

“ I now found myself under a worse captain than Symonds! for Montague was loaded with prejudices against every body, and every thing that was not stamped with royalty; and being by nature underwitted, his wrath was heavier than the others, or at least his mind was in no instance liable to be diverted by good sense, humor or bravery, of which Symonds was by turns susceptible. A Capt. Francis Proctor was added to our number of prisoners when we were first put on board this ship. This gentleman had formerly belonged to the English service. ”

“ These are inflicted by assemblies and committees, who dare to profess themselves friends to liberty, upon the most quiet subjects, without distinction of age or sex, for the sole crime, often for the sole suspicion, of having adhered in principle to the government under which they were born, and to which, by every tie, divine and human, they owe allegiance. ”

“ I also held up his honor to view, and his behavior to me and the prisoners in general, as being derogatory to it, but found his honor impenetrable. I then endeavored to touch his humanity, but found he had none; for his prepossession of bigotry to his own party, had confirmed him in an opinion, that no humanity was due to unroyalists, but seemed to think that heaven and earth were made merely to gratify the King and his creatures ”

“ Mankind are naturally too national, even to a degree of bigotry, and commercial intercourse with foreign nations, has a great and necessary tendency to improve mankind, and erase the superstition of the mind by acquainting them that human nature, policy and interest, are the same in all nations, and at the same time they are bartering commodities for the conveniences and happiness of each nation, they may reciprocally exchange such part of their customs and manners as may be beneficial, and learn to extend charity and good will the whole world of mankind. ”

“ Sir William Howe and his associates, who prescribed and directed the murders and cruelties, which were by them perpetrated. This Loring is a monster!—There is not his like in human shape. He exhibits a smiling countenance, seems to wear a phiz of humanity, but has been instrumentally capable of the most consummate acts of wickedness, which were first projected by an abandoned British council clothed with the authority of a Howe, murdering premeditatedly, in cold blood, near or quite two thousand helpless prisoners, and that in the most clandestine, mean and shameful manner, at New-York. ”

“ To the eyes and ears of the temperate part of the public, and to the breasts of suffering thousands in the provinces, be the melancholy appeal, whether the present unnatural rebellion has not been made a foundation for the completest system of tyranny that ever God, in his displeasure, suffered for a time to be exercised over a froward and stubborn generation. ”

“ The allegation against him, as the cause of his confinement, was very extraordinary. He was accused of setting fire to the city of New-York, at the time the west part of it was consumed, when it was a known fact, that he had been in the provost a week before the fire broke out; and in like manner, frivolous were the ostensible accusations against most of those who were there confined; the case of two militia officers excepted, who were taken in their attempting to escape from their parole; and probably there may be some other instances which might justify such a confinement. ”

“ As to the article of provision, we were well served, much better than in any part of my captivity; and since it was Mr. Lovel's misfortunes and mine to be prisoners, and in so wretched circumstances, I was happy that we were together as a mutual support to each other, and to the unfortunate prisoners with us. Our first attention was the preservation of ourselves and injured little republic; the rest of our time we devoted interchangeably to politics and philosophy, as patience was a needful exercise in so evil a situation, but contentment mean and impracticable. ”

“ The British have made so extensive an improvement of the provost during the present revolution till of late, that a very short definition will be sufficient for the dullest apprehensions. It may be with propriety called the British inquisition, and calculated to support their oppressive measures and designs, by suppressing the spirit of liberty; as also a place to confine the criminals, and most infamous wretches of their own army, where many gentlemen of the American army, and citizens thereof, were promiscuously confined, with every species of criminals ”

“ The domestic, the industrious, the infirm, and even the timid inhabitants I am desirous to protect, provided they remain quietly at their houses; that they do not suffer their cattle to be removed, nor their corn or forage to-be secreted or destroyed; that they do not break up their bridges or roads: nor by any other act, directly or indirectly, endeavour to obstruct the operations of the king's troops, or supply or assist those of the enemy. Every species of provision brought to my camp, will be paid for at an equitable rate, and in solid coin. ”

“ The rascally Brook Watson then set out for London in great haste, expecting the reward of his zeal; but the ministry received him, as I have been since informed, rather coolly; for the the minority in parliament took advantage, arguing that the opposition of America to Great Britain, was not a rebellion: If it is, say they, why do you not execute Col. Allen according to law? But the majority argued that I ought to be executed, and that the opposition was really a rebellion, but that policy obliged them not to do it, inasmuch as the Congress had then most prisoners in their power ”

“ M'Cloud of the British, pulled him by the skirt, and whispered to him, as he afterwards told me, to this import; that it was inconsistent with his honor to strike a prisoner. He then ordered a sergeant's command with fixed bayonets to come forward, and kill thirteen Canadians, which were included in the treaty aforesaid.
It cut me to the heart to see the Canadians in so hard a case, in consequence of their having been true to me; they were wringing their hands, saying their prayers, as I concluded, and expected immediate death. ”