They have retained as prisoners of war citizens of the United
States not liable to be so considered under the usages of war.

They have refused to consider as prisoners of war, and threatened
to punish as traitors and deserters, persons emigrating without
restraint to the United States, incorporated by naturalization
into our political family, and fighting under the authority of
their adopted country in open and honorable war for the
maintenance of its rights and safety. Such is the avowed purpose
of a Government which is in the practice of naturalizing by
thousands citizens of other countries, and not only of permitting
but compelling them to fight its battles against their native
country.

They have not, it is true, taken into their own hands the hatchet
and the knife, devoted to indiscriminate massacre, but they have
let loose the savages armed with these cruel instruments; have
allured them into their service, and carried them to battle by
their sides, eager to glut their savage thirst with the blood of
the vanquished and to finish the work of torture and death on
maimed and defenseless captives. And, what was never before seen,
British commanders have extorted victory over the unconquerable
valor of our troops by presenting to the sympathy of their chief
captives awaiting massacre from their savage associates. And now
we find them, in further contempt of the modes of honorable
warfare, supplying the place of a conquering force by attempts to
disorganize our political society, to dismember our confederated
Republic. Happily, like others, these will recoil on the authors;
but they mark the degenerate counsels from which they emanate, and
if they did not belong to a sense of unexampled inconsistencies