* * * Thousands of my unhappy countrymen were
consigned to slow, consuming tortures, equally fatal and potent to
destruction."
The American officers on parole in New York prepared a memorial to Sir
William Howe on the condition of these wretched sufferers, and it was
signed by Colonels Magaw, Miles, and Atlee. This is, no doubt, the
paper of which Colonel Ethan Allen writes. Captain Graydon was
commissioned to deliver this document to Sir William Howe. He says:
"The representation which had been submitted to General Howe in behalf
of the suffering prisoners was more successful than had been expected.
* * * The propositions had been considered by Sir William Howe, and he
was disposed to accede to them. These were that the men should be sent
within our lines, where they should be receipted for, and an equal
number of the prisoners in our hands returned in exchange. * * * Our
men, no longer soldiers (their terms for which they had enlisted
having expired) and too debilitated for service, gave a claim to sound
men, immediately fit to take the field, and there was moreover great
danger that if they remained in New York the disease with which they
were infected might be spread throughout the city. At any rate hope
was admitted into the mansions of despair, the prison doors were
thrown open, and the soldiers who were yet alive and capable of being
moved were conveyed to our nearest posts, under the care of our
regimental surgeons, to them a fortunate circumstance, since it
enabled them to exchange the land of bondage for that of liberty.
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