Allen's narrative in the preceding chapter gives a picture of himself, of the times, and of the treatment of prisoners by the most civilized nation on earth. In January, 1777, with other American officers, he was quartered on Long Island. In August he was sent to the provost jail in New York. May 3, 1778, he was exchanged for Col. Alexander Campbell. Thus he was treated as a colonel, although he had no fixed official rank or title beyond that informally bestowed on him by Montgomery. He was entertained with gentlemanly courtesy for two days at General Campbell's headquarters on Staten Island, and then crossed New Jersey amid the acclamations of the people. For several days he was the guest of Washington at Valley Forge. Here, eighteen miles northwest of Philadelphia, where the British army was revelling in luxury, Washington, with three thousand men suffering from cold and hunger, was praying to God for guidance in so sore a strait. Baron Steuben was there fresh from the service of Frederic the Great, disciplining the raw recruits into veteran soldiers never again to know defeat. There were Gates, attending a court-martial, and Putnam and Lafayette. These were among Allen's red-letter days; courteously entertained by some of the best soldiers of Europe and America, and the favored guest of Washington, could Heaven reward him better for his long imprisonment? Here he writes a letter to Congress which Washington forwards inclosed with his own. Allen began the journey to his Vermont home in company with Gates, arriving in Fishkill on May 18, and in Bennington just four weeks after his release from prison. We now come to a chapter in Allen's life which the biographer must enter upon with a mind free from prejudice, and with a strong desire to assimilate the feelings of the age when our little commonwealth was in process of formation. About the close of the year 1776, Allen being a prisoner on parole in New York, a British officer of rank sent for him to come to his lodgings. He told him that his fidelity, although in a wrong cause, had recommended him to General Sir William Howe, who wished to make him the colonel of a regiment of tories. He proposed that Allen in a few days should go to England, be paid in gold instead of continental rag money, be introduced to Lord George Germaine and probably to the king, return to America with Burgoyne, assist in reducing the country, and receive a large tract of land in Vermont or Connecticut as he preferred. Allen replied: "If by fidelity I have recommended myself to General Howe, I shall be loath by unfaithfulness to lose the general's good opinion; besides, I view the offer of land to be similar to that which the devil offered our Saviour, 'to give him all the kingdoms of the world to fall down and worship him,' when the poor devil had not one foot of land on earth."