doc_id n="S5-V3-P03-sp03-D00100">

Extract from Samuel Curwen' s Journal, Exeter, England

v3:1269

By a Mr˙ Lloyd, of the Twentieth Regiment, just arrived in the Lord Howe frigate from Quebeck, and who was on the lake with Burgoyne and Carleton, a report is brought that a merchantman met the Active frigate at sea, and learned that General Washington had abandoned the lines at Kingsbridge, left his cannon and stores, and that his Army is mouldered away; that New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, have deserted the Union, and declared for Government; speaks of the "Yankees," as he is pleased to call them, in the most contemptuous terms, as cowards, poltroons, cruel, and possessing every bad quality the depraved heart can be cursed with; and says the Regulars at Trois-Rivieres took five hundred prisoners, killed one hundred, and lost only three men, who were killed by Yankees, who had got upon trees and fired down on them.

It is my earnest wish the despised Americans may convince these conceited Islanders, that without regular standing armies our Continent can furnish brave soldiers and judicious and expert commanders, by some knock-down, irrefragable argument; for then, and not till then, may we expect generous or fair treatment. It piques my pride, I confess, to hear us called "our Colonies, our Plantations," in such terms and with such airs as if our property and persons were absolutely theirs, like the "villains" and their cottages in the old feudal system; so long since abolished, though the spirit or leaven is not totally gone, it seems.