This whole
transaction gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted
ideas of the prowess of British regulars had not been well founded.
In their first march, too, from their landing till they got beyond
the settlements, they had plundered and stripped the inhabitants,
totally ruining some poor families, besides insulting, abusing,
and confining the people if they remonstrated. This was enough
to put us out of conceit of such defenders, if we had really
wanted any. How different was the conduct of our French friends
in 1781, who, during a march thro' the most inhabited part of our
country from Rhode Island to Virginia, near seven hundred miles,
occasioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig,
a chicken, or even an apple.
Captain Orme, who was one of the general's aids-de-camp, and,
being grievously wounded, was brought off with him, and continu'd
with him to his death, which happen'd in a few days, told me that
he was totally silent all the first day, and at night only said,
"Who would have thought it?" That he was silent again the following day,
saying only at last, "We shall better know how to deal with them
another time;" and dy'd in a few minutes after.
The secretary's papers, with all the general's orders,
instructions, and correspondence, falling into the enemy's hands,
they selected and translated into French a number of the articles,
which they printed, to prove the hostile intentions of the British
court before the declaration of war.
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