The Hessian prisoners were subsequently transferred from place to place, until they reached Winchester in the interior of Virginia. Wherever they arrived, people thronged from far and near to see these terrible beings of whom they had received such formidable accounts; and were surprised and disappointed to find them looking like other men. At first they had to endure the hootings and revilings of the multitude, for having hired themselves out to the trade of blood; and they especially speak of the scoldings they received from old women in the villages, who upbraided them for coming to rob them of their liberty. “At length,” writes the corporal in his journal, “General Washington had written notices put up in town and country, that we were innocent of this war and had joined in it not of our free will, but through compulsion. We should, therefore, be treated not as enemies, but friends. From this time,” adds he, “things went better with us. Every day came many out of the towns, old and young, rich and poor, and brought us provisions, and treated us with kindness and humanity.”[160] CHAPTER XLV. EPISODE—COLONEL GRIFFIN IN THE JERSEYS—DONOP DECOYED—INROAD OF CADWALADER AND REED—RETREAT AND CONFUSION OF THE ENEMY’S OUTPOSTS—WASHINGTON RECROSSES THE DELAWARE WITH HIS TROOPS—THE GAME REVERSED—THE HESSIANS HUNTED BACK THROUGH THE COUNTRY—WASHINGTON MADE MILITARY DICTATOR. There was a kind of episode in the affair at Trenton. Colonel Griffin, who had thrown himself previously into the Jerseys with his detachment of Pennsylvania militia, found himself, through indisposition and the scanty number of his troops, unable to render efficient service in the proposed attack. He sent word to Cadwalader, therefore, that he should probably render him more real aid by making a demonstration in front of Donop, and drawing him off so far into the interior as to be out of the way of rendering support to Colonel Rahl. He accordingly presented himself in sight of Donop’s cantonment on the 25th of December, and succeeded in drawing him out with nearly his whole force of two thousand men. He then retired slowly before him, skirmishing, but avoiding any thing like an action, until he had lured him as far as Mount Holly; when he left him to find his way back to his post at his leisure.