and of medium height, so that it is difficult to tell one
from another, when they are summoned by the consul
of Boston as delegates of their townships, or have to
appear on militia business. Not one in ten of them
can read writing. Still less can they write. This art
is only known to the knights of the pen and to the
female sex. The latter are well brought up, and therefore
succeed in obtaining mastery over the men more
than in any nation in the world. The New-Englanders
all want to be politicians, and, therefore, love the tavern
and grog-bowl, over which they do their business, and
drink from morning till night. They are all extremely
curious, credulous, and madly in love with freedom,
but at the same time so blind that they have not yet
become at all aware of the heavy yoke of slavery laid
on them by Congress, under which they are, in fact,
already beginning to sink.”[1]
On the other hand, if we may believe the Brunswick officer above quoted, the Americans could not understand the social condition of their captives. “It was hard to make the inhabitants understand,” says he, “ that our officers had no professions. They had believed that it was from caprice that they would not work at their trades.”[2]
The German “conventionists” were put into barracks on Winter Hill, near Cambridge, Massachusetts, while the English occupied the neighboring Prospect Hill. These barracks had been erected by the Americans for their own use during the siege of Boston, and were of the lightest description. The wind whistled through
