[136] On the 30th of July, 1776, Colonel Palfrey went on board Lord Howe’s ship to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. The noble Admiral was careful to speak of the American Commander-in-Chief as _General_ Washington; he declared that he held his person and character in the highest esteem, and that his heart was deeply touched by the affectionate allusion of Washington and of Congress, to his elder brother Lord George, who fell at Ticonderoga. With a moistened eye he alluded to the fact that the province of Massachusetts had erected a monument to his brother in Westminster Abbey. In closing the interview he sent his kind regards to Washington, and added, “I hope that America will one day or other be convinced that, in our affection for that country, we are also Howes.” [137] It would seem that God must have stricken the British leaders with gross incapacity, else with such a powerful fleet and with such a numerous highly-disciplined, and thoroughly equipped army, the feebleness of half-starved, half-clothed, and not half-equipped American farmers would have been entirely crushed out in a week. No one familiar with military affairs can examine these operations without _amazement_ that the Americans could have maintained so unequal a conflict. There is nothing to be compared to it in all the annals of warfare. For be it remembered that neither the British officers nor soldiers were cowards. Men more reckless of danger never stormed a battery. [138] It requires a heart hardened by the horrors of war to see, unmoved, an overpowering band of soldiers, maddened by the conflict, plunging their bayonets into the faces, bosoms, and bowels of farmers, boys, crying for mercy, and who have but just come from their peaceful firesides. [139] Washington wrote to General Greene, on the 8th of November: “I am inclined to think that it will not be prudent to hazard the men and stores at Mount Washington. But, as you are on the spot I leave it to you to give such orders, as to evacuating Mount Washington, as you may judge best; and so far revoking the orders given to Colonel Magaw, to defend it to the last.” [140] “The people of New Jersey beheld the commander in chief retreating through their country, with a handful of men, weary, way-worn, dispirited, without tents, without clothing, many of them barefooted, exposed to wintry weather, and driven from port to port, by a well clad, triumphant force tricked out in all the glittering bravery, of war.”--Irving’s _Life of Washington_, p. 304. [141] American Archives, 5th series, iii. 1037. [142] American Archives, 5th series, iii. 1265. Letter of Joseph Trumbull to Governor Trumbull. [143] From the tavern at Baskinridge Lee wrote to General Gates: “The ingenious manœuvre at Fort Washington has completely unhinged the goodly fabric we had been building. There never was so damned a stroke. _Entre nous_ (between us) a certain great man is damnably deficient.”