Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/185

 Rh A drummer was then sent over to the American camp to announce that on the next day a staff officer would be sent to discuss matters of importance with General Gates; and to ask for a truce in the meanwhile. This General Gates granted.

About ten o'clock in the morning of the 14th of October Colonel Kingston was sent over to the American camp with Burgoyne's proposals, which were in substance that his army should yield themselves prisoners of war, but under condition that they should be taken to Boston and thence shipped to England, agreeing not to serve against the Americans during the war, unless previously exchanged.

General Gates did not accept these proposals, but drew up another form of capitulation, in six articles, setting forth that “General Burgoyne's army being reduced by repeated defeats, by desertion, sickness, etc., their provisions exhausted, their military horses, tents, and baggage taken or destroyed, their retreat cut off, and their camp invested, they can only be allowed to surrender as prisoners of war.”

The sixth article provided that “these terms being agreed to and signed, the troops under his Excellency's, General Burgoyne's command, may be drawn up in their encampments, where they will be ordered to ground their arms, and may thereupon be marched to the river side on their way to Bennington.”

General Burgoyne hereupon called the council of war together and read them the above proposals. The officers declared unanimously that they would rather die of hunger than accept such dishonorable terms.