Truly this was a war of philosophers and gentlemen, and the courtly generals of Louis XV would not have expressed more elegantly their consideration for the enemy. Jefferson's declaration was no mere gesture, for he struck up lasting friendships with several of the prisoners. He was particularly interested in a young German officer, Louis de Unger, who showed a remarkable talent for philosophy, in Baron de Geismer with whom he kept up a correspondence for more than ten years,[71] and in Major General Baron de Riedesel who, with his wife, was a frequent guest at Monticello. To many of them Jefferson opened his house, his library, and his dining room. He discussed philosophy and agriculture with them, played duets on his violin, and sincerely regretted the loss of that pleasant society when he had to leave after his appointment as governor.[72] Yet a sterner trait in his character was soon to be revealed. While the British prisoners were described as "having thus found the art of rendering captivity itself comfortable, and carried to execution, at their own great expense and labor, their spirits sustained by the prospect of gratifications rising before their eyes", the American prisoners and noncombatants were receiving harsher treatment at the hands of the British. War had become particularly atrocious after Indian tribes had been encouraged to attack the insurgents, and this was an offense that Jefferson could not condone. When Governor Hamilton of Kaskakias, with his two lieutenants, Dejean and Lamothe, who had distinguished themselves by their harsh policy, surrendered to Clark and were brought to Virginia, Jefferson ordered them confined in the dungeon of the public jail, put in irons and kept incommunicado. On General Philips' protest Jefferson wrote to Washington to ask him for advice, but added that in his opinion these prisoners were common criminals and that he could "find nothing in Books usually recurred to as testimonials of the Laws and usages of nature and nations which convicts the opinion I have above expressed of error."[73] To Guy Carleton, Governor of Canada, he answered that "we think ourselves justified in Governor Hamilton's strick confinement on the general principle of National retaliation", and no punishment was too severe for a man who had employed "Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an indiscriminate butchery of men, women and children."[74] When a few weeks later, upon Washington's request, the irons were taken from the prisoners and a parole offered to them, Jefferson obeyed very reluctantly and informed the general that "they objected to that part of it which restrained them from _saying_ anything to the prejudice of the United States" and insisted on "freedom of speech"; they were in consequence remanded to their confinement in the jail, "which must be considered as a voluntary one until they can determine with themselves to be inoffensive in words as well as deeds."[75]