General Scott by Marcus Joseph Wright
page 30 of 370 (08%)
page 30 of 370 (08%)
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necessary, by an order to give no quarter hereafter in battle. He was
frequently interrupted by the British officers, but they failed to silence him. The Irishmen were put in irons, placed on board a frigate, and sent to England. After Colonel Scott landed in Boston he proceeded to Washington and was duly exchanged. He at once addressed a letter to the Secretary of War as follows: "SIR: I think it my duty to lay before the Department that on the arrival at Quebec of the American prisoners of war surrendered at Queenstown they were mustered and examined by British officers appointed to that duty, and every native-born of the United Kingdom of Great-Britain and Ireland sequestered and sent on board a ship of war then in the harbor. The vessel in a few days thereafter sailed for England with these persons on board. Between fifteen and twenty persons were thus taken from us, natives of Ireland, several of whom were known by their platoon officers to be naturalized citizens of the United States, and others to have been long residents within the same. One in particular, whose name has escaped me, besides having complied with all the conditions of our naturalization laws, was represented by his officers to have left a wife and five children, all of them born within the State of New York. "I distinctly understood, as well from the officers who came on board the prison ship for the above purposes as from others with whom I remonstrated on this subject, that it was the determination of the British Government, as expressed through Sir George Prevost, to punish every man whom it might subject to its power found in arms against the British king contrary to his native allegiance. I have the honor to be, sir, |
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