News:

We need volunteers in sales, marketing, PR, IT, and general "running of an organization." 
Maximize your Appleseed energy to make this program grow, and help fill the empty spots
on the firing line!  An hour of time spent at this level can have the impact of ten or a
hundred hours on the firing line.  Want to help? Send a PM to Monkey!

Main Menu

Insight into the Minds of the British Officers

Started by malabar, December 01, 2013, 03:14:28 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

malabar

I had stumbled across this some time back (maybe as the result of something posted here). Since I can't find Lord Rawdon on a search, I assume it's not posted here.

It's a letter from Lord Rawdon to the Earl of Huntington written in 1775, after the British troops had landed in New York.  The letter describes how amused Rawdon was by the random gang-rape of Colonial women by British soldiers.  Yet one more reason why the Colonials were so prepared to fight year after year for a cause which must have seemed hopeless.

Here's a link...
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-5-JeCa2Z7hOGY2OGEzOTItZTg2Ni00MDcwLTkwMjMtOTAwMjRlOTkxYTEx/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

Here's the text.....




Francis, Lord Rawdon to Francis Hastings, tenth Earl of Huntingdon
Staten Island, near New York, August 5, 1776

We are just arrived here, my dearest Lord, after a very pleasant passage. Your letter of April 4 met me as soon as I set foot on shore. The company my letter from Virginia found you in is certainly the pleasantest in the world. Though I have neither a yellow damask drawing-room nor Constantia cape, I cultivate the acquaintance in a tent with Madeira, and after all there is but little difference.

The fair nymphs of this isle are in wonderful tribulation, as the fresh meat our men have got here has made them as riotous as satyrs. A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don't bear them with the proper resignation, and of consequence we have most entertaining courts-martial every day.

To the southward they behaved much better in these cases, if I may judge from a woman who having been forced by seven of our men, [came] to make a complaint to me "not of their usage," she said; "No, thank God, she despised that," but of their having taken an old prayer book for which she had a particular affection.

A girl on this island made a complaint the other day to Lord Percy of her being deflowered, as she said, by some grenadiers. Lord Percy asked her how she knew them to be grenadiers, as it happened in the dark. "Oh, good God," cried she, "they could be nothing else, and if your Lordship will examine I am sure you will find it so."

All the English troops are encamped, or in cantonment, upon this island, as healthy and spirited a body of men as ever took the field. Several transports with Highlanders have been taken by the rebel privateers; the rest are all arrived, and are so enraged against the Yankees for some insults offered to their captive comrades that I think the first corps of psalm-singers who come in the way of their broad swords will be in a very awkward situation.

Should my grandmother want any cherubins to adorn a new chapel, I dare say the Highlander would supply them with the heads of the elect for that purpose at a cheap rate; but my grandmother will probably change sides when she hears that the Hessians sing hymns as loud as the Yankees, though it must be owned they have not the godly twang through the nose which distinguishes the faithful.

Some of the Hessians are arrived and long much to have a brush with the rebels, of whom they have a most despicable opinion. They are good troops but in point of men nothing equal to ours.
Some of the Guards are arrived, but not yet landed. Everybody seems to have formed a most favourable opinion of them. The desire they have shown to come upon service has pleased the line exceedingly and it will be their own faults if they do not keep this tide of applause in their favour.

I imagine that we shall very soon come to action, and I do not doubt but the consequence will be fatal to the rebels. An army composed as theirs is cannot bear the frown of adversity. General Carlton's successes in Canada have dispirited them exceedingly: their situation is critical, with his victorious army in their rear whilst they have such a force as ours in front. They have mustered all their troops to meet us and have entrenched themselves every where, but they will not be trifling obstacles that will stop a body of men so keen for service as ours are.

I speak always with due submission to the goddess Nemesis, but I think she owes the Americans a croc-en-jambe, and when she pays it, I flatter myself she will do it effectually. Every measure, indeed, which can ensure success seems to have been taken on our side, and though I do not by any means deny the powerful influence of your deity, Fortune,  upon all human affairs, I think there are certain precautions which have wonderful efficacy in deciding the event of every undertaking.
I am still with General Clinton. . . .

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

-- Justice Alex Kozinski, US 9th Circuit Court, 2003