[ 136 ] EDWARD H. TEBBENHOFF jealous of the trust Clinton placed in the more moderate loyalists.43 The "restraints" imposed by Clinton's commission both surprised and angered the Refugees. On December 1, 1780, the directors sent Clinton a letter of protest. They concluded that the restrictions the commission contained "would militate against if not entirely frustrate the good purposes intended by such an establishment!'44 The nature of the directors' complaints give a good indication of their intentions for the organization. They outlined their principal objections to the commission as follows:45 1. The confidence of the king in establishing the board "is rendered in a manner fruitless" by subjecting the board of directors to the "Regulations, Limitations, and Restrictions" imposed by Clinton in his commission. The board complained that "the Directors are made merely ministerial" and that nothing "of Consequence" was left to their discretion. 2. They complained that prisoners taken by the associators were neither confined nor treated as the board proposed, that is, "neither better nor worse than they treat the Loyalists!' The board complained that the rebels refused to consider captured loyalists as prisoners of war. This practice "cannot be Stop'd or prevented but by Retaliation'.' They also believed the board should control or at least be consulted on the treatment of nonmilitary prisoners. 3. The board objected that Clinton's commission allowed loyalists not under the board's direction to make excursions on their own. Confusion and disorder would result from the excesses of others and defeat the purpose of the organization—"to bring the Exertions of the Body of Loyalists under one general Direction!' 4. The directors believed that the fifth and seventh articles of Clinton's commission contained too many restraints upon the board. "We conceive it indeed absolutely essential!' the directors concluded, "to that predatory kind of War proposed . . . that a Latitude of Command ... be allowed to their Officers, when on Excursions, to conduct 48 Smith, Memoirs, III, 349. 44 Board Minutes, November 30,1780. 45See Board of Directors to Sir Henry Clinton, December 1, 1780, PROCO, 5/82, 137-42-