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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 183: CAPTURE OF GENERAL PRESCOT, ETC.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

CAPTURE OF GENERAL PRESCOT, ETC.

During the winter of the preceding year, while Washington was retreating before Lord Cornwallis Colonel Harcourt, who commanded our light-horse, took prisoner Charles Lee, who had deserted from the British service, in which he held the rank of colonel, and had gone over to the Americans, who conferred on him the rank of major-general. Lee was attempting to join Washington’s force with 3000 men, when he was captured, and his loss seems to have been considered a severe blow to the cause of the Americans. Washington, indeed, proposed giving six Hessian field-officers in exchange for him; which was refused, on the ground that Lee was a deserter from the king’s service, and therefore could not be considered as a prisoner of war, or be exchanged by cartel. Congress then took up the business, and directed that Washington should inform General Howe that five Hessian field-officers and Lieutenant-colonel Archibald Campbell, who had been captured at Boston after Howe had evacuated that city, should be thrown into confinement, and subjected to the same treatment which Lee should receive. This would have been no great hardship; for Lee was merely confined to a commodious house, and had every accommodation; but shutting their eyes to this well-known fact, congress threw Campbell into the common gaol of Concord, and decorated his loathsome dungeon with the ornaments of the gallows or gibbet. Washington himself represented the iniquity of such a proceeding, but to no purpose: the chagrin felt at the capture and retention of Lee forbade the exercise of a manly and liberal feeling. Congress had soon an opportunity of exhibiting their chagrin in a still stronger light. General Prescot, commanding-officer on Rhode Island, had imprudently fixed his headquarters near the western shore, at a considerable distance from his troops. This was known to Colonel Barton, an American officer, and he, with several other militia officers and volunteers, chiefly Rhode Islanders, crossed over by night from Warwick-neck to Rhode Island, and took General Prescot in his bed, hurried him to their boats, and sailed away to the main land. It was announced that Prescot should be hanged if Lee were shot; and they treated him in the interval with great severity, in order to make General Howe consent to an exchange, to which he finally agreed.

GEORGE III. 1777-1778