Gen. Washington wrote to gen. Howe in the beginning of April, “It is a fact not to be questioned, that the usage of our prisoners while in your possession, the privates at least, was such as could not be justified. This was proclaimed by the concurrent testimony of all who came out. Their appearance sanctified the assertion, and melancholy experience, in the speedy death of a large part of them, stamped it with infallible certainty.” The cruel treatment of the prisoners being the subject of conversation among some officers captured by Sir Guy Carleton, gen. Parsons, who was of the company, said, “I am very glad of it.” They expressed their astonishment, and desired him to explain himself. He thus addressed them. “You have been taken by gen. Carleton, and he has used you with great humanity; would you be inclined to fight against him?” The answer was no. “So,” added Parsons, “would it have been, had the troops taken by Howe been treated in like manner; but now, through his cruelty, we shall get another army.” The hon. William Smith, esq.[44] now at Haverstraw, learning how the British used the prisoners, and concluding it would operate to that end by enraging the Americans, applied to the committee of the New-York state, for leave to go into the city, and remonstrate with the British upon such cruel treatment, which he doubted not but that he should put a stop to. The committee, however, either from knowing what effect the cruelties would have in strengthening the opposition to Britain, or from jealousies of his being in some other way of disservice to the American cause, or from these united, would not grant his request. Gen. Gates has been repeatedly heard to say to the following purport—“Had gen. Howe seen to it, that the prisoners and Jersey inhabitants, when subdued, were treated with as much humanity and kindness as Sir Guy Carleton exercised toward his prisoners, it would have been all up with the Americans.”