Letters From George Washington to Lt. Gen. Thomas Gage; To George Washington from Prisoner Lt. John Knight,
From George Washington to Lieutenant General Thomas Gage, 19 August 1775
To Lieutenant General Thomas Gage
Head Quarters Cambridge Augt 19th 1775.
Sir
I address’d you on the 11th Instant in Terms which gave the fairest Scope, for the Exercise of that Humanity & Politeness, which were supposed to form a Part of your Character—I remonstrated with you, on the unworthy Treatment shewn to the Officers, and Citizens of America, whom the Fortune of War, Chance, or a mistaken Confidence had thrown into your Hands. Whether British, or American Mercy, Fortitude, & Patience are most preeminent; whether our virtuous Citizens whom the Hand of Tyranny has forced into Arms, to defend their Wives, their Children, & their Property; or the mercenary Instruments of lawless Domination, Avarice, and Revenge best deserve the Appellation of Rebels, and the Punishment of that Cord, which your affected Clemency has forborne to inflict; Whether the Authority under which I act is usurp’d, or founded on the genuine Principles of Liberty, were altogether foreign to my Subject. I purposely avoided all political Disquisition; nor shall I now avail myself of those Advantages, which the sacred Cause of my Country, of Liberty, and human Nature give me over you. Much less shall I stoop to Retort, & Invective. But the Intelligence, you say, you have received from our Army requires a Reply. I have taken Time, Sir, to make a strict Inquiry, and find it has not the least Foundation in Truth. Not only your Officers, and Soldiers have been treated with a Tendernessdue to Fellow Citizens, & Brethren; but even those execrable Parricides, whose Counsels & Aid have deluged their Country with Blood, have been protected from the Fury of a justly enraged People. Far from compelling, or even permitting their Assistance, I am embarassed with the Numbers who crowd to our Camp animated with the purest Principles of Virtue, & Love of their Country.
You advise me to give free Operation to Truth, to punish Misrepresentation & Falshood. If Experience stamps Value upon Counsel, yours must have a Weight which few can claim. You best can tell, how far the Convulsion which has brought such Ruin on both Countries, and shaken the mighty Empire of Brittain to its Foundation, may be traced to those malignant Causes.
You affect, Sir, to despise all Rank not derived from the same Source with your own. I cannot conceive any more honourable, than that which flows from the uncorrupted Choice of a brave and free Poeple—The purest Source & original Fountain of all Power. Far from making it a Plea for Cruelty, a Mind of true Magnanimity, & enlarged Ideas would comprehend & respect it.
What may have been the ministerial Views which precipitated the present Crisis, Lexington—Concord, & Charlestown can best declare—May that God to whom you then appealed, judge between America & you! Under his Providence, those who influence the Councils of America, and all the other Inhabitants of these united Colonies, at the Hazard of their Lives, are resolved to hand down to Posterity those just & invaluable Privileges which they received from their Ancestors.
I shall now, Sir, close my Correspondence with you, perhaps forever. If your Officers who are our Prisoners receive a Treatment from me, different from what I wish’d to shew them, they, & you, will remember the Occasion of it.1 I am Sir, Your very Hbble Servant.
1. On 14 Aug. Joseph Reed wrote to James Otis, Sr., president of the Massachusetts council: “His Excelly being oblijed to attend some Business in the Lines has directed me to acquaint you & the Honle Court that he has received a Letter [of 13 Aug.] from Gen. Gage which has determined him to order the Officers now at Water Town together with those from Cape Ann to be confined in Northampton Gaol. General Gage is resolved to know no Distinction of Rank among our Prisoners in his Hands—which obliges Gen. Washington (very contrary to his Disposition) to observe the same Rule of Treatment to those Gentlemen, to whom it will be proper to explain the Reasons of a Conduct, which otherwise may appear harsh & cruel—The common Men, the General Court will order to such Places as they think proper” (M-Ar: Revolution Letters). GW relented the next day. “When Capt. [John] Knight & the other Gentlemen went from hence yesterday,” Reed wrote to the Northampton committee of safety on 15 Aug., “it was intended they should have been put into the same Confinement with Prisoners of a common Rank: But some Circumstances since have changed this Intention. I now therefore by Direction of his Excelly Gen. Washington am to acquaint you that Capt. Knight and such of his Company for whom he will engage giving his & their Parole of Honour not to go out of the Limits you prescribe them are to be indulged with the Liberty of walking about this your Town—And the General farther requests that every other Indulgence & Civility consistent with their Security may be shown them as long as they demean themselves with Decency & good Manners—As they committed no Hostilities against the People of this Country they have a just Claim to mild Treatment and the General does not doubt that your Conduct towards them will be such as to compel their grateful Acknowledgment that Americans are equally merciful as brave” (DLC:GW). See also John Knight to GW, 10 Jan. 1776.
To George Washington from Lieutenant John Knight, 10 January 1776
From Lieutenant John Knight
Northampton [Mass.] Jany 10th 1776
Sir
Many reasons as well as the unexpected lengthening time of my Captivity enduces me to take the liberty of addressing you on a Subject the propriety of which I must leave to your Judgement. Freedom from being a Prisoner, is the ultimate of my request, and as this great indulgence I conceive lyes entirely with yr Excellency, I must beg your attention one moment—to my reasons for this presumption. I have been employed in America since the Year 1763 on the Survey of the Sea Coasts, and since 1770 untill the hour of my Captivity commanded a Kings Vessel on that Service only; during all which time I can declare I never did a single injury to an American, or ever detain’d one of their Vessels (even on an Illicit Trade) tho’ often in my power; on the contrary I dare believe there are several will do me the Justice to acknowledge having received assistance from me when in distress. The Work I was then engaged on, was of a publick Nature, and intended for the Advantage of all, but as this unhappy dispute must necessar[i]ly put a Stop to that Service, there is not the least probability of my being employed (Should your goodness endulge me with my Liberty) there being so many Young Gentlemen with the Adml waiting for promotion, and many more seeking Employment, which to a Man in my Situation, having a familly in America, would admit of no invitation. I should trespass on your patience to relate the particulars of my being made Prisoner at Machias, which I am confident, would appear most favourable for me, and no doubt influence you sir in a great measure to acquiesce with my entreaty. If Captain Stephen Smith the principal person of that place was near your Excellency, he would I am positive inform, that the proceedings with me there & the surgeon Mr McFadyen belonging to the Diligent, was altogether contrary to every practice in War.1
I beg leave to Submit these facts to your Excelcys consideration2 and am with respect Your Excellency’s most Obedient very humble servant
John Knight
ALS, DLC:GW.
John Knight, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, was surveying the Bay of Fundy in the armed schooner Diligent, when on 15 July 1775 he took his vessel into the Machias River. Apparently unaware of the skirmish that had occurred a few weeks earlier between the inhabitants of the town of Machias and another British armed schooner (see a Committee of the Massachusetts Council to GW, 11 Aug. 1775, n.3), Knight accepted an invitation to come ashore with his officers and was promptly taken prisoner. The Diligent and its tender Tatamagouch were seized the next day. Knight and his crew were sent to Cambridge, and in August he was one of several prisoners ordered to Northampton for safekeeping.
1. It was Stephen Smith who invited Knight to come ashore at Machias on 15 July. Later in the summer Smith commanded a privateer that raided a fort on the St. John River in Nova Scotia (now New Brunswick), and in December he was appointed naval officer for Machias. Surgeon George Gregory McFadyen was exchanged near the end of 1776.
2. Horatio Gates replied to Knight on 24 Jan.: “I have this moment wrote to Captain Stanhope, & given him by his Excellencies Comand, Such reasons for not imediatly granting his request as Cannot but be Satisfactory [see Henry Edwin Stanhope to GW, 16 Jan. 1776, n.3]; the Same reasons you will clearly See hold good with respect to you—the General is truely Concerned it is not at present in his power to grant you Leave to go to Nova Scotia to your family; the first moment that Can be done with propriety, you may be assured that Indulgence will be granted. When his Excellency granted you the District of the town of Northampton & five miles round for your place of Confinement he understood that Northampton & Hadly were towns Like those to the Southward of moderate extent, Since upon better Information, he finds that each of those towns Contain a District of a very Large extent of Country he directs me to acquaint you, & desires you will acquaint all the Gentlemen upon their Parole at either of those towns, that they must Keepthemselves within the Legal Limits of the town they Live in” (DLC:GW; see also Northampton Committee of Safety to GW, 17 Jan. 1776). On 24 Oct. 1776 Knight again wrote to GW requesting his release, and a few weeks later he was exchanged. Soon after returning to the Royal Navy, Knight was court-martialed for losing the Diligent but he was apparently acquitted, for early in 1777 he was given command of the armed vessel Haerlem at New York.