Sir:

Yours of last night I received, and really am at a loss to know what your meaning is; you certainly, when you proposed an exchange of prisoners, could never have meant to pay your own people so poor a compliment, as not to look upon those whom the Convention thought proper to appoint to hold military commissions, in any other light than officers; those you talk of as officers of militia and peasants, whom you say I have thought proper to deprive of their liberty, come under that predicament, and were taken armed against their liege Sovereign. If the rank of officers in each army is not to be our guide, I own I am at a loss to know by what rule we are to be governed in exchange of prisoners.