DISPOSAL OF THE CONVENTION TROOPS.[732]—In accordance with Article IV. of the convention, the captured army was marched, under guard of General Glover, to the neighborhood of Boston, where it arrived about Nov. 6th. The British troops were barracked on Prospect Hill and the German troops on Winter Hill, the officers being quartered in Cambridge and the neighboring towns. Much complaint was made of the character and insufficiency of their accommodations, but considering the limited supply of houses at the disposal of General Heath, commanding the Eastern department, he did the best in his power, without the aid of the State of Massachusetts, to whose Council he appealed for the use of "at least one of the colleges" for their comfort. At the worst, however, these captives fared far better than our own troops at Valley Forge during that winter.[733] Under Article V. supplies were to be furnished to Burgoyne's army "at the same rates." This was interpreted by Congress, Dec. 19th, to mean "that the accounts of all provisions and other necessaries which already have been or which hereafter may be supplied by the public to prisoners in the power of these States shall be discharged by either receiving from the British Commissary of Prisoners, or any of his agents, provisions or other necessaries, equal in quality and kind to what had been supplied, or the amount thereof in gold or silver." Exacting provisions _in kind_, though inconvenient to the British commissary, was not unreasonable, considering their scarcity; but the condition that expenditures made in depreciated Continental money should be liquidated, dollar for dollar, in gold and silver, was a hard one. As a justification for this latter requirement, it was stated by Congress "that General Howe had required that provisions should be sent in for the subsistence of the American prisoners in his possession, and that for the purchase of such necessaries he had forbidden the circulation of the currency of the States within such parts as are subject to his power." By Article II. General Howe was authorized to send transports to Boston to receive the troops for their conveyance to England. For its failure to carry out the obligation imposed upon it by its own general, the American government, through Congress, justified itself by claiming that Burgoyne had already evaded the provisions of Article I. of the convention. Bancroft, in his _History of the United States_, contends that it had been broken by Burgoyne at the time of the surrender, by the concealment of the military chest and other public property, of which the United States were thus defrauded.[734] He therefore sustains Congress in its subsequent demand for the descriptive lists "of all persons comprehended in the surrender", and the postponing of the embarkation of Burgoyne's army "until his capitulation should be expressly confirmed by Great Britain."