Beschreibung:

BURGOYNE, JOHN, 1722-1792, General, British Army . Autograph Letter signed ("J. Burgoyne") as an American prisoner of war, to General William Heath Cambridge, 10 November 1777. 4 pages, 4to, 224 x 185mm. (8 7/8 x 7 1/4 in.), portion of last page very lightly browned, otherwise in fine condition. ONE MONTH AFTER SURRENDERING AT SARATOGA, "GENTLEMAN JOHNNY" BURGOYNE COMPLAINS THAT THE QUARTERS PROVIDED HIS CAPTURED OFFICERS "WOULD NOT BE HELD FIT FOR GENTLEMEN" An impassioned letter from General Burgoyne to American General Heath, bitterly complaining of the treatment he and his 5,000 men have received as prisoners of war. At the momentous surrender at Saratoga, a "convention" was agreed between Burgoyne and General Gates setting out terms for the surrender and return to Britain, after vowing to sign a parole not to serve in America again. Congress, realizing the returned British would free other soldiers to fight in America, repudiated its terms. Here, "Gentleman Johnny's" complaints are spelled out: "I am under the necessity, and I am persuaded you will partake my concern, on returning to you the proposed parole unsigned, the British regiment having unanimously decided that the Convention is infringed in several circumstances but particularly in the article expressing that every officer shall be quartered according to his Rank. I am aware sir of your intentions to remove the field officers as a remedy for the present inconveniences; and when I had the honor to see you I apprehended that measure might have been of considerable avail, otherwise I should not have troubled you to transmit the papers. But since I have had the occasion to visit the barracks myself I am in honour, and duty, and the fullest conviction, compelled to join my voice with the other officers, and assert that the Quarters allotted to them would not be held fit for gentlemen in their situation in any part of the world...The Officers feel these hardships the more grieviously as they have reason to believe there are many inhabitants...willing to receive them as lodgers were they at liberty to do so...[T]hat the Article regarding Quarters shall be properly fulfilled before any Parole is signed, is a Resolution that no Individual will depart from. In regard to General [William] Phillips and myself I shall say little. Our treatment is new to us though we are not strangers to what it is to be in the hands of an Enemy...[I]f the Bodies in which the great authorities of your State are vested have not means or inclinations to enforce, nor the people hospitality nor civilization voluntarily to grant, compliances in matters of Publick faith, we have only to protest, and to claim a removal to some other district, not imagining it possible the same ideas should exist in two parts of America..." While Burgoyne and his officers were eventually allowed to return to Britain in April 1778, most of the soldiers remained prisoners for the duration of the war. It is now known that Sir William Howe British Commander-in-Chief, planned to disregard the Convention in any case and allow the released soldiers to serve in America again.