The garrison of Fort Washington surrendered by capitulation to General Howe, the 16th of November. The terms were that the fort should be surrendered, the troops be considered prisoners of war, and that the American officers should keep their baggage and sidearms. These articles were signed and afterwards published in the New York papers. Major Otho Holland Williams, of Rawling's Rifle Regiment, in doing his duty that day, unfortunately fell into the hands of the enemy. The haughty deportment of the officers, and the scurrility of the soldiers of the British army, he afterward said, soon dispelled his hopes of being treated with lenity. Many of the American officers were plundered of their baggage and robbed of their sidearms, hats, cockades, etc., and otherwise grossly ill-treated. Williams and three companions were, on the third day, put on board the Baltic-Merchant, a hospital ship, then lying in the sound. The wretchedness of his situation was in some degree alleviated by a small pittance of pork and parsnip which a good-natured sailor spared him from his own mess. The fourth day of their captivity, Rawlings, Hanson, M'Intire, and himself, all wounded officers, were put into one common dirt-cart and dragged through the city of New York as objects of derision, reviled as rebels, and treated with the utmost contempt. From the cart they were set down at the door of an old wastehouse, the remains of Hampden Hall, near Bridewell, which, because of the openness and filthiness of the place, he had a few months before refused as barracks for his privates, but now was willing to accept for himself and friends, in hopes of finding an intermission of the fatigue and persecution they had perpetually suffered. Some provisions were issued to the prisoners in the afternoon of that day, what quantity he could not declare, but it was of the worst quality he ever, till then, saw made use of. He was informed the allowance consisted of six ounces of pork, one pound of biscuit, and some peas per day for each man, and two bushels and a half of sea coal per week for the officers to each fireplace. These were admitted on parole, and lived generally in wastehouses. The privates, in the coldest season of the year, were close confined in churches, sugar-houses, and other open buildings (which admitted all kinds of weather), and consequently were subjected to the severest kind of persecution that ever unfortunate captives suffered.