"
Paris March 30th. 1777.
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter written in 1780, to a Mr. Hartley, an
English gentleman who was opposed to the war, said that Congress had
investigated the cruelties perpetrated by the English upon their
defenceless prisoners, and had instructed him to prepare a _school
book_ for the use of American children, to be illustrated by
thirty-five good engravings, each to picture some scene of horror,
some enormity of suffering, such as should indelibly impress upon the
minds of the school children a dread of British rule, and a hatred of
British malice and wickedness!
The old philosopher did not accomplish this task: had he done so it is
improbable that we would have so long remained in ignorance of some of
the facts which we are now endeavoring to collect. It will be pleasant
to glance, for a moment, on the other side the subject. It is well
known that there was a large party in England, who, like Benjamin
Franklin's correspondent, were opposed to the war; men of humanity,
fair-minded enough to sympathize with the struggles of an oppressed
people, of the same blood as themselves.
"The Prisoners of 1776, A Relic of the Revolution," is a little book
edited by the Rev. R. Livesey, and published in Boston, in 1854. The
facts in this volume were complied from the journal of Charles Herbert
of Newburyport, Mass.
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