On this I
began to afford them some supplies of Provisions over and above what
the Enemy afforded them, which was very small and very indifferent.
"The complaints of the very cruel treatment our Prisoners met with in
the Enemy's lines rose to such a Heighth that in the Fall of this
Year, 1777 the General wrote to General Howe or Clinton reciting their
complaints and proposing to send an Officer into New York to examine
into the truth of them. This was agreed to, and a regular pass-port
returned accordingly. The General ordered me on this service. I
accordingly went over on the 3rd of Feb. 1778, in my own Sloop."
The Commandant at this time was General Robertson, by whom Boudinot
was very well treated, and allowed, in company with a British officer,
to visit the prisons. He continues: "Accordingly I went to the Provost
with the Officer, where we found near thirty Officers from Colonels
downwards, in close confinement in the Gaol in New York. After some
conversation with the late Ethan Allen, I told him my errand, on which
he was very free in his abuse of the British. *** We then proceeded
upstairs to the Room of their Confinement. I had the Officers drawn up
in a Ring and informed them of my mission, that I was determined to
hear nothing in secret. That I therefore hoped they would each of them
in their turn report to me faithfully and candidly the Treatment they
severally had received,--that my design was to obtain them the proper
redress, but if they kept back anything from an improper fear of their
keepers, they would have themselves only to blame for their want of
immediate redress.
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