Slavery, beggary and want

J.L. Bell reprints part of a flier Revolutionaries set into the wind in the hopes they would flutter down on Redcoats encamped in Boston in 1775 - and on deserters from the American side:

... The notion of provincial militiamen slipping off to the British lines surprises me, not because I see the American cause as obviously just and holy but because the countryside undoubtedly had more food and more opportunities for movement. One of the handbills that the provincials printed, shown above, even highlighted that difference. Yet some men saw better prospects inside Boston than outside. ...