§ 249. The right to exercise reprisals carries with it great danger of arbitrariness, for often the alleged facts which make belligerents resort to reprisals are not sufficiently verified, or the rules of war which they consider the enemy has violated are sometimes not generally recognised, or the act of reprisal performed is often excessive compared with the precedent act of illegitimate warfare. Three cases may illustrate this danger. (1) In 1782 Joshua Huddy, a captain in the army of the American insurgents, was taken prisoner by loyalists and handed over to a Captain Lippencott for the ostensible purpose of being exchanged, but was arbitrarily hanged. The commander of the British troops had Lippencott arrested, and ordered him to be tried for murder. Lippencott was, however, acquitted by the court-martial, as there was evidence to show that his command to execute Huddy was in accordance with orders of a Board which he was bound to obey. Thereupon some British officers who were prisoners of war in the hands of the Americans were directed to cast lots to determine who should be executed by way of reprisal for the execution of Huddy. The lot fell on Captain Asgill, a young officer only nineteen years old, and he would have been executed but for the mediation of the Queen of France, who saved his life.[474] (2) "The British Government, having sent to England, early in 1813, to be tried for treason, twenty-three Irishmen, naturalised in the United States, who had been captured on vessels of the United States, Congress authorised the President to retaliate. Under this act, General Dearborn placed in close confinement twenty-three prisoners taken at Fort George. General Prevost, under express directions of Lord Bathurst, ordered the close imprisonment of double the number of commissioned and non-commissioned United States' officers. This was followed by a threat of 'unmitigated severity against the American citizens and villages' in case the system of retaliation was pursued. Mr. Madison having retorted by putting in confinement a similar number of British officers taken by the United States, General Prevost immediately retorted by subjecting to the same discipline all his prisoners whatsoever.... A better temper, however, soon came over the British Government, by whom this system had been instituted. A party of United States' officers, who were prisoners of war in England, were released on parole, with instructions to state to the President that the twenty-three prisoners who had been charged with treason in England had not been tried, but remained on the usual basis of prisoners of war. This led to the dismissal on parole of all the officers of both sides."[475]