I have the honor to be, &c. ARTHUR LEE. THE COMMISSIONERS IN PARIS TO LORD NORTH. Passy, December 12th, 1777. My Lord, From motives of duty and an earnest desire of mitigating the calamities of war, we proposed near a year since, to the king of Great Britain’s Ambassador here, an exchange of prisoners in Europe. The answer we received must have been made known to your Lordship, and the world will judge of its decency. It would have been honorable for that noble lord, and happy for thousands who have since suffered unnecessarily, if he had considered that moderation is a mark of wisdom, and humanity an ornament to the highest station. These are the sentiments at least, which have governed the Congress and people of the United States. They have wished that this war, into which they entered with reluctance, might be distinguished by the humanity with which it was conducted; and that compassion might heal the wounds that were inflicted. The records of Congress, my lord, are filled with proofs of tender care and attention, not only to the wants, but to the comforts and accommodation of their prisoners. We have wished in vain to find such instances in the acts of the British government, for unhappily all we have seen on this subject, is the public declaration of the governor and general, who was chosen to commence this war, that the American officer and soldier should be treated with equal indignity, and all devoted without distinction to the most ignominious fate, in terms too low for us to repeat. We have never heard of this proceeding having been censured by the government from which he derived his authority. Neither has the invitation to the Indian savages, at a public treaty, to drink the blood and feast upon the bodies of those, whom you called your subjects, been ever disavowed.