"Were the king's forces in Boston to sally forth and conquer our army, the rules of civilized warfare would be of no account to them, I am thinking;" suggested Mr. Reed. "It behooves us to keep out of their clutches, or die in the attempt." The cruelty of British officers to prisoners was the subject of frequent discussion between Washington and his advisers, and finally he wrote to General Gage as follows: "I understand that the officers engaged in the cause of liberty and their country, who, by the fortune of war have fallen into your hands, have been thrown indiscriminately into a common jail, appropriated to felons; that no consideration has been had for those of the most respectable rank, when languishing with wounds and sickness, and that some have been amputated in this unworthy situation.... The obligations arising from the rights of humanity and claims of rank are universally binding and extensive, except in case of retaliation. These, I should have hoped, would have dictated a more tender treatment of those individuals whom chance or war had put in your power.... My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I shall regulate all my conduct towards those gentlemen who are, or may be, in our possession, exactly by the rule you shall observe toward those of ours now in your custody. "If severity and hardships mark the line of your conduct, painful as it may be to me, your prisoners will feel its effects. But if kindness and humanity are shown to us, I shall with pleasure consider those in our hands only as unfortunate, and they shall receive from me that treatment to which the unfortunate are ever entitled." The reply of General Gage was characteristic of a conceited, ambitious, and domineering officer of the king, and Washington closed his reply to it with these words: "I shall now, sir, close my correspondence with you, perhaps forever. If your officers, our prisoners, receive a treatment from me different from that which I wished to show them, they and you will remember the occasion of it." Subsequently, Washington ordered British officers at Watertown and Cape Ann, who were at large on parole, to be confined in the jail at Northampton, explaining to them that it was not agreeable to his feelings of humanity, but according to the treatment of Americans whom the officers of the crown held as prisoners. But he could not tolerate even this mild form of retaliation, and therefore in a short time he revoked the order, and the prisoners were at large again. "I was never more distressed in mind than I am now," remarked Washington to a member of his staff. "Why so?"