"'I have the honour to transmit to Your Excellency a general letter containing the state of the garrison and of my Department to the 1st inst., and a return, at the foot, of the war parties that have been on service this year, . . . by which it will appear that they have killed and taken during the season already 150 persons, including those last brought in. . . .' "Again he reports, August 30, 1781: "'The party with Capt. Caldwell and some of the Indians with Capt. Lottridge are returning, having destroyed several settlements in Ulster County, and about 100 of the Indians are gone against other parts of the frontiers, and I have some large parties under good leaders still on service as well as scouts towards Fort Pitt. . . .' "Not only are there many returns of this sort, but also tabulated statements, giving the number of prisoners sent down from Fort Niagara to Montreal on given dates, with their names, ages, names of their captors, and the places where they were taken. There were many shipments during the summer of '83, and the latest return of this sort which I have found in the archives is dated August 1st of that year, when eleven prisoners were sent from the fort to Montreal. It was probably not far from this time that the last American prisoner of the Revolution was released from Fort Niagara. But let the reader beware of forming hasty conclusions as to the cruelty or brutality of the British at Fort Niagara. In the first place, remember that harshness or kindness in the treatment of the helpless depends in good degree--and always has depended--upon the temperament and mood of the individual custodian. There were those in command at Fort Niagara who appear to have been capable of almost any iniquity. Others gave frequent and conspicuous proofs of their humanity. Remember, secondly, that the prisoners primarily belonged to the Indians who captured them. The Indian custom of adoption--the taking into the family circle of a prisoner in place of a son or husband who had been killed by the enemy--was an Iroquois custom, dating back much further than their acquaintance with the English. Many of the Americans who were detained in this fashion by their Indian captors, probably never were given over to the British. Some, as we know, like Mary Jemison, the White Woman of the Genesee, adopted the Indian mode of life and refused to leave it. Others died in captivity, some escaped. Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish were first prisoners, then utilised as interpreters, but remained among the Indians. And in many cases, especially of women and children, we know that they were got away from the Indians by the British officers at Fort Niagara, only after considerable trouble and expense. In these cases the British were the real benefactors of