John Adams says simply, "We send you Generals
Washington and Lee for your comfort"; but adds nothing in regard to the
character of the Commander-in-Chief. This letter displays much of the
writer's ardent temperament; if he had been anywhere but in the hall of
Congress, it would have been in the intrenchment before Boston.
"I hope," he writes, "a good account will be given of Gage, Haldiman,
Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe, before winter. Such a wretch as Howe, with
a statue in honor of his family in Westminster Abbey, erected by the
Massachusetts, to come over with the design to cut the throats of the
Massachusetts people, is too much. I most sincerely, coolly, and
devoutly wish that a lucky ball or bayonet may make a signal example of
him, in warning to all such unprincipled, unsentimental miscreants for
the future!"
He goes on in a strain that smacks somewhat of aristocratic feeling:
"Our camp will be an illustrious school of military virtue, and will be
resorted to and frequented, as such, by gentlemen in great numbers from
the other colonies." The term "gentleman" has seldom been used in this
sense subsequently to the Revolution. Another letter introduces us to
two of these gentlemen, Messrs. Acquilla Hall and Josias Carvill,
volunteers, who are recommended as "of the first families in Maryland,
and possessing independent fortunes.
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