Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/208

194 human nature, towards those of their own people who took the British side; that captain Fenton, continuing steadfast to the king, and being gone to England, some women of the lower orders seized on his wife and daughter—a beautiful girl of fifteen—tore off their clothes, tarred and feathered them, and dragged them, in that condition, as a show round the town. (See her "Dienst-Reise," pp. 192-202.)



Whilst ladies received such treatment, it was not likely that the British troops and officers could escape insult and injury from the unmanly Bostonians. English soldiers were not only insulted but stabbed, and a colonel Henley, on the complaint of Burgoyne, was brought before a court-martial for stabbing English soldiers with his own hand on two separate occasions; but he was declared only to have acted with too much warmth, and was acquitted! An article of the convention expressly provided that the English officers should be quartered according to their rank; but they complained that six or seven of them were crowded into one small room, without regard either to rank or comfort. But Burgoyne, finding remonstrance useless at Boston, wrote to Gates reminding him of his engagements in the convention, and declaring such treatment a breach of public faith.

This was just one of those expressions that congress was watching for, and they seized upon it with avidity. "Here," they said, "is a deep and crafty scheme—a previous notice put in by the British general to justify his future conduct; for, beyond all doubt, he will think himself absolved from his obligation whenever released from his captivity, and go with all his troops to reinforce the army of Howe."

This was only such a plea as minds dishonourable in themselves could have advanced; no such quibbling belonged to the British character, and Burgoyne offered at once to give congress any security against any such imagined perfidy. But this did not suit congress—its only object was to fasten some imputation on the English as an excuse for detaining them contrary to the convention, and they went on, in the true spirit of a pettifogging meanness, to raise fresh obstacles. They sent to Burgoyne, insisting on his furnishing them with a descriptive list of all the non-commissioned officers and privates of his army; but, as this formed no part of the convention, it was properly declined. They then declared that the English had broken the convention; that they had not surrendered all their arms, these arms being some cartouch-boxes, and other accoutrements, retained by individuals, as is the case in all such surrenders; but the congress declared that these were arms, and therefore justified them in detaining the British force. When the transports sent by general Howe arrived, they would not admit them.

When Burgoyne surrendered, he should have been prepared for this despicable conduct on the part of congress, for it was precisely what it had done before when general Arnold made an exchange of prisoners with general Carleton in Canada in the preceding year. "Arnold," says their own historian, Hildreth, "who commanded at Montreal, signed a cartel of exchange, by which it was agreed to release as many prisoners in the hands of the Americans. But congress refused to ratify this agreement, and this refusal presently became a serious obstacle in the way of any regular exchange of prisoners."

The shameful length to which congress carried this dishonourable shuffling astonished Europe. They insisted that Great Britain should give a formal ratification of the convention before they gave up the troops, though they allowed Burgoyne and a few of his officers to go home. The British commissioners, who had arrived with full powers to settle any affair, offered immediately such ratification; but this did not arrest the slippery chicane of congress. It declared that it would not be satisfied without ratification directly from the highest authority at home. In short, congress, in open violation of the convention, detained the British troops for several years prisoners of war. Lord Mahon, recording these circumstances with every feeling of disgust which arises in honourable minds at such exhibitions, says:—"It has been usual to consider the events of Saratoga as; fraught only with humiliation to England, and with