Your country mourns your hapless fate;So mourn we prisoners all;You’ve paid the debt we all must pay,Each sailor, great and small.Your body on this barren moor,—Your soul in Heaven doth rest,Where Yankee sailors, one and all,Hereafter will be blest.
Your country mourns your hapless fate;So mourn we prisoners all;You’ve paid the debt we all must pay,Each sailor, great and small.Your body on this barren moor,—Your soul in Heaven doth rest,Where Yankee sailors, one and all,Hereafter will be blest.
Your country mourns your hapless fate;So mourn we prisoners all;You’ve paid the debt we all must pay,Each sailor, great and small.
Your country mourns your hapless fate;
So mourn we prisoners all;
You’ve paid the debt we all must pay,
Each sailor, great and small.
Your body on this barren moor,—Your soul in Heaven doth rest,Where Yankee sailors, one and all,Hereafter will be blest.
Your body on this barren moor,—
Your soul in Heaven doth rest,
Where Yankee sailors, one and all,
Hereafter will be blest.
The agent permitted us to put this stone up, and of the many thousands that lay indiscriminately mingled together upon this moor, this stone recorded the only syllable of the dead buried here. The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ by the path of an arrow, which is immediately closed up and lost.
We received our monthly pay as usual, and nothing remarkable occurred during the remainder of the month; few persons arrived, but we had expectation of a great number. The weather was rainy and cold; the prisoners generally healthy; few died, but the prison was very much crowded, there being 1,500 in No. 4.
At the commencement of August, a draft of prisoners arrived, who had been recently captured on the coast of Europe, among whom were four men lately belonging to the private armed schooner Surprise, of Baltimore; these four men, on their first arrival at this depot, were put into close confinement in the cachot, there to remain on two-thirds allowance, without hammock or bed, sleeping on the stone floor, during their whole imprisonment. When the cause of their confinement was known, it seems it had grown out of the following circumstances:
The Surprise was cruising in the channel of England, and fell in with, and captured, a schooner, and put on board her these four men, to take charge of the prize.
Shortly after, the prize was recaptured by an English frigate, and, after taking possession of her, found stowed away in the round-house (which is a few feet above the deck) a cask of powder, which contained but a few pounds at most, and on examination they found part of a match and a candle; the captain of the frigate, being suspicious of these four men’s having an intention to blow the vessel up, took them and committedthem to close confinement until he arrived in England; he then reported them to the Board of Transport, and delivered them into their custody, and they, from these suspicious circumstances, sentenced them to the punishment above mentioned. Whether the crime, had it been well proved, would warrant so rigorous a punishment, is not the subject of investigation; they had the power to treat them as they pleased, nor had the sufferers any redress, for,inter armis lages silent, “the laws are silent amid arms.”
On the arrival of these prisoners, Capt. Shortland opened the south yard of the enclosure, and gave all the officers liberty to go into No. 6. A few days after, ahabeas corpus ad testificandumwas awarded to bring forward six prisoners, to appear and give evidence in the cause of Thomas Hill, then depending at the next Exeter assizes, who was charged with manslaughter for killing James Henry on the third of July. The termination of the trial, I shall give in a subsequent page.
The prisoners having no expectation or hope of exchange, or a peace, now set about contriving a method of escape, something of which we hinted at in a preceding page. The plan was to dig out of prison No. 6. The plan was made known to the prisoners in No. 4, who were expecting to be removed into No. 6 in a few days, when they would have access to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, which were contained in one yard. To have the plan circulated with the greatest secrecy that would obtain the opinion of all the prisoners, without the suspicion of the guards or officers, it was thought best to have it done in poetry, and accordingly it was done in that manner. This attracted the attention of the prisoners, and we soon found the intention of each man to favor the plan.
On the fifteenth of August, the six men whom we mentioned in the preceding page, were taken to Exeter, returned, and with them Thomas Hill, who was acquitted by the jury, and he remanded to Dartmoor as a prisoner of war.
The same day arrived a large draft of prisoners, who had been sent from Halifax prison on board the transport ship Bensen. These persons, on their passage, attempted to rise and take the ship, in which attempt a sharp contest ensued, and the struggle was for some time doubtful, but the American prisoners were overpowered, and afterwards treated with the greatest severity and cruelty. In the engagement several on both sides were severely wounded, but none killed or mortallywounded. Some of the prisoners were taken out and put on board the ship Commodore, and the remainder confined in the coal-hole, and kept on bread and water for several days.
These prisoners were put into No. 6, which now made about eight hundred in that prison, and about twelve hundred in No. 4, who were not yet removed.
We finding our number increasing daily, and no prospect of peace or exchange, now determined to put in execution our projected plan of escape; every prisoner being willing, and not a dissenting voice among the whole, we mustered a number of bibles in each prison, and began to solemnly swear every man to keep secret every transaction he should see or know of concerning the operation then about to be begun; when a man was sworn, he was strictly cautioned and charged not to make known, by word or sign, in any way whatever, anything which might lead to a discovery of their design, on pain of immediate death in a private and secret manner, which would most assuredly take place without the knowledge of the keepers.
After they were all sworn, and the fixed determination of hanging the first informer, a number of confidential persons were appointed as spies, to watch the conduct of others. We also appointed other trusty men to watch the movements of the turnkeys and sentries, and see that the prisoners held no conversation with either of them. We then divided ourselves into parties to work, and who were alternately to dig and relieve each other.
After taking a correct survey of the ground, measuring and making it out, and taking the course, on the twentieth we made a beginning in both prisons, and dug directly down. In this perpendicular direction we must sink our work twenty feet, which would come on a horizontal plane with the road. On this horizontal plane we must then pursue the work, in an eastern direction, two hundred and fifty feet, which distance would carry us beyond the outer wall and under all the foundations which extended below the surface of the earth about six feet; if this work were performed we should then have a passage into the road. The digging could be carried on with very little difficulty: but the great obstacle before us was to convey away the dirt, and this, on a little consideration, seemed to vanish when we considered the stream of water in the yard, which passed under the prison at the rate offour miles an hour; into this stream we threw great quantities of fine dirt, which passed off. We, as another means to get clear of the dirt, obtained permission to bring into the prison a large quantity of lime, under the pretence of white-washing the walls of the prison.
These walls were made of large rough stone, and every night we made of the dirt a sort of morter, and plastered on the walls, and then white-washed it over.
No. 5 prison containing no prisoners, and not being visited by the keepers, we thought best to begin a similar operation in that prison, as we could pass and repass into it unknown to the keepers. In this we commenced digging in the day-time, and found a hollow place under the prison to stow the dirt away.
In these three different places we made our attacks, and very rightly supposing, that if one should be discovered, that we should still have another, which we could proceed in without suspicion; we were apprehensive that the run of water, which passed through an iron grating at the outlet, might get stopped with the dirt, and lead to a discovery. We hastened on the work, every man as busy as a bee, and flushed with the hope and full belief that we should shortly make our escape.
At the close of the month, we had dug toward the wall in a horizontal direction forty feet, without the least suspicion. As we entered so far under ground we found a want of fresh air, and to remedy this, we contrived a lamp to keep burning in the hole, that would expel all the axotic gas, or dead air, and bring in a constant supply of fresh.
I must digress for a moment, to give an account of some events which took place during this operation.
In the meanwhile a number of prisoners arrived; some from Chatham, some from the West Indies, and from other places. These, as soon as they arrived, were made acquainted with our design and operations, and sworn and charged as the others had been. Among these prisoners was the crew of the United States brig Frolic. These prisoners were destitute of clothing, and in a very bad state of health, which was occasioned by being so very closely confined during the passage, and their allowance so very short. During the month we had great quantities of rain, which was very favorable to our operations. The prisoners were now more healthy than they had been before since our confinement. Those who had been sick for some timedied. Those who had been here a long time had become used to the hardships, but new comers were sickly.
On the last day of August, our subterraneous passage was sixty feet from No. 5, and about the same from No. 6, and No. 4 nearly equal. The dirt being very loose, and but few stones to obstruct our way, our passage seemed short, and promised success.
September having commenced, and no suspicion or discovery as yet made, although the prisons were searched every day by the keepers; but the holes being very small, and so nicely closed every day, that it would require the minutest search to discover the place; but the hole was larger under ground, and would admit four men to work abreast.
But, to our great mortification, on the second, Capt. Shortland entered the prison with the guards, and went directly towards the hole, and as he passed, he informed us that he knew of our operations in No. 5, but his informer had not told him correctly, for after a long search, they could not discover the hole.
It was then suggested by his attendants to sound the prison; they then began with crow-bars to sound, and after having made the minutest examination, by accident found the entrance, to the great mortification of every man.
They undertook to enter the hole, but after entering a few feet, their lights went out, and they could not keep them burning; and being unacquainted with the materials, and method used by us to light the hole and expel the dead air, could not penetrate to the extent, nor did they ever enter near all the distance.
They were no less astonished to conceive what had become of the dirt taken from the passage, and it ever remained a great mystery to them.
Every man was strictly cautioned, should any discovery take place, not to give any account whatever of the means they had made use of to light the hole, or how they had disposed of the dirt; and when they were strictly examined by the officers, they gave no other answer, than that each man eat his proportion, to make up his scant allowance.
To prevent any further operation of this kind, Capt. Shortland had every prisoner removed from the yard which encloses No. 5, 6, and 7, into the enclosure on the north side, which contained No. 1, 2, and 3; but having no suspicions of any attempts to escape in No. 4, they let the prisoners there remain.
After the prisoners were removed from the other two prisons, they filled the entrance of the hole up with stone: they supposed these were not eatable.
We remained in No. 2 till the eighth, when we were again removed to the south side, on account of prison No. 2 being out of repair. This gave us fresh hopes. As the noise had not yet entirely got silent, we thought best to stop all operations in No. 4 for the present.
In the mean while, our court of judicature was sitting, and several persons were arraigned at the bar, and charged with having given information of our design to escape; all the evidence against them was produced, but the crime being of a capital nature by our laws, required positive and direct evidence, which the court considered had not been produced; and although very strong circumstantial evidence had been given, yet they considered that such evidence ought never to take a man’s life, which must have been the case had any one been found guilty.
We afterwards believed it must have been accidental; that some person had spoken too loud, or in an unguarded manner in the presence of the turnkeys; for we found no discovery had been made of the operations in No. 4 or 5, although Capt. Shortland had declared himself to be acquainted with them in No. 5.
After the bustle of the discovery had a little blown over, and the officers and keepers had ridiculed the futile idea of our making our escape, by saying they had guards and spies in all directions; we then gave orders to the blacks in No. 4 to proceed on with their work. At this time, the 10th, a draft of prisoners arrived from Chatham; these were mostly men delivered up from ships of war in England, and some few were sent from the West Indies, Bermuda, and New Providence.—This draft increased the number of prisoners at this depot to three thousand five hundred in all.
When these men arrived, we were under great apprehensions that they would be ordered into No. 5, and in the hurry and bustle of entering, before they were cautioned, might lead to a discovery of the work in that prison; but happily, they were ordered into No. 7, and all the white prisoners from No. 4 ordered in with them; and all the blacks were now to be kept by themselves.
They were directed to proceed as we mentioned before, andto report progress every evening. As the hole in No. 6 was farthest advanced, we formed a communication to let each other know their progress each day, that all the holes might proceed with equal progress, and come out at the same time.
With this arrangement we proceeded on, and on the 12th, in No. 6, we dug down, and the next day had gone quite round the stones which were thrown in to fill up the entrance of the hole, and came out into the former passage: this was done in the night, and in the day time we carried on the work in No. 5, disposing of the dirt as before.
The work went on with the greatest care, secrecy and success, and every man was animated with the liveliest hope of soon gaining his liberty, till each hole had come within thirty-five or forty feet of the intended place of coming out.
We could always ascertain the distance we were from the top of the ground by measuring with our line and rule, and had concluded to work that distance in one week: every man was now provided with a dagger, made by prisoners who worked at black-smithing.
When the work was complete, we were to make our move some dark stormy night at the hour of ten, which would give every man who wished, an opportunity to reach Torbay, about ten miles distant, at which place lay a large number of unarmed vessels, fishing boats and other small craft; we could reach this place a little after midnight, and then proceed as fast as possible for France; on leaving the outlet of the passage every man was to separate and take care of himself. When we were once out, we had determined to reach France or sell our lives at the dearest rate; for, by this time, life was of little consequence to us, when we compared it to the miseries we must suffer, if we should be brought back, and therefore we were determined to hazard it at all events.
But I hasten from our future resolutions to relieve the reader from his anxiety, by showing the event.
At this moment, when every man was well pleased with the prospect, how was his just indignation raised, and his fierce anger kindled!—a man by the name of[1]Bagley, another Sinon, walked out in the open day, before all the prisoners then in the yard, went up to the turnkeys and marched off with them to the keeper’s house, gave him information of all the operationsand designs, and we never saw him after; for could we have catched him, we should scarcely have tried him, but should have torn him in atoms before the life could have time to leave his traitorous body.
This Judas received the price of his iniquity from the Transport Board, and got a passport to go where he pleased, and the public’s humble servant put into the cachot;—but I can tell him, should this work ever reach his infamous hand, that it is the sincere wish of every prisoner, that he may fall, and like that other Judas, his bowels may gush out.
The prisoners were then immediately removed to the north side of the enclosure, and confined to No. 1 and 3; and to repair the damages which had been done to the prisons, Capt. Shortland put every man on two thirds allowance, and took the other third to pay expenses of repair; this he did for ten days successively; if we had eaten the dirt up, we had to starve it back again.
Our hopes were all blown up to the moon, and we left to despair; we had no prospect by which we could hope to be relieved, but every thing seemed to threaten us with imprisonment for life. We again resigned ourselves to our situation, and placed all our hopes of life and liberty on that Almighty arm, which had brought us to these sufferings by His Divine pleasure. Every man with reluctance now returns to his usual occupation, hoping to gain a few articles of clothing, which he stood in need of. The shoes furnished by Mr. Beasley, which were the poorest that could be made in England, were now worn out, and we needed others.
It was reported among the prisoners, that an exchange was about to take place; but as we had no account to that effect from Mr. Beasley, we could place no dependence on it; the only hope we had was bribing the guards, and that of peace.
By letters from Plymouth, we had information that an action had been fought between the Essex, Capt. Porter, and the British frigate Phebe, Capt. Hillyar, and a sloop of war. The action was long and severe, and much blood spilt on both sides; and although the Essex was taken, the honour of the day belonged to the Americans. She fought under every disadvantage, and gallantly stood the fire of both the enemy’s vessels, and bore hard for a victory, till chance decided against her. The magnanimity of the officers and crew commands the noblest sentiments of respect from every American; they deservedno common meed of praise; I therefore undertook to celebrate their valorous deeds in verse.
A large draft of prisoners, from Chatham, arrived at this place the latter end of this month; among them were great numbers of men who had been detained on board His Majesty’s ships from eight to twelve years, and one who had been detained eighteen years. The greatest part of this draft were men who had been delivered up from the navy; they were collected at Chatham, and brought round by water to Plymouth, landed, and then ordered to prepare to march for Dartmoor prison, the sufferings of which they had long been acquainted with, by report; but previous to their departure, they, anticipating their treatment there, prepared the following motto, in capitals, and fixed it to the fore part of their hats: “British gratitude for past services.” With this on their hats, they marched the distance of eighteen miles. During the march, the officers tried every means to persuade them to take it off, but they absolutely refused, saying it was truth, and, as prisoners of war, they had a just cause to complain of the treatment and ingratitude of a government which they had so long served. They insisted that it was cruelty to make them prisoners, after they had served so many years as good and faithful servants; and it was much more ungrateful now to send them to the worst prison in England, as a compensation for their long and faithful services.
The garrison was now reinforced by a large number of soldiers, and the prisoners separated; the whites in the north and south wing, occupying two prisons in each yard, and the blacks one in the centre. The prisoners were not permitted to have intercourse with one another from the different prisons, except on Sundays.
The number being now very large, it was feared they would rise, and take possession of the guard-house, and then make their escape. They had some ground to fear the event might take place, for the prisoners did not consider these walls, nor the soldiers, any very great obstacle in the accomplishment of such an undertaking, had it been their design. But they knew very well the consequence of doing this; although, on the firstsortie, the officers, soldiers and guards, must fall into their power, yet as the prisoners must all march in a body to keep them under, the alarm would spread over all England, and the militia be raised upon them, before they would be able to reach the sea-coast and take shipping.
Capt. Shortland was in daily fear of such an attack, for there was scarce a day but some dispute or strife took place between the turnkeys or guards and the prisoners, and kept a continual alarm. The prisoners would not hear any abusive language against the President of the United States; and on the first disrespectful word from a sentry, stationed singly in the yard, they would knock him down, and he could get no relief till they were willing to release him, for the prisoners immediately surrounded him by hundreds; and the garrison declared that they had more trouble with four thousand Americans than they should have with twenty thousand Frenchmen.
On the last day of this month, another draft arrived, among whom were the crew of the United States brig Rattlesnake and some others, sent from Halifax.
The prisoners became sickly again, and upwards of one hundred in the hospital; but they had much better attendance than before, having now a new surgeon, Dr. Magrath, to superintend that department; he was a humane, skilful and attentive man, and a friend to the sick and distressed prisoner. I know of nothing more agreeable to the human feelings than the presence of a friend by our sick-bed; and this man administered more of the medicine of life by the sympathetic emotions of his heart than all the anodynes in the apothecary’s shop.
We had much rain and stormy weather during the month of September. One tedious month had now passed by, and another lay in hopeless prospect before us; but our hopes were a little revived on the second of October by a letter which we received from Mr. Beasley, informing us that a partial exchange would take place between the two countries. This exchange would extend to none but those taken in the United States vessels; this letter was to inform the crew of the Argus more particularly, as they were the oldest prisoners taken in the United States service. The same letter gave general information that there was great prospects of a speedy peace between the two belligerants.
Several persons made their escape by bribing the sentries after this news, and passing out in the night, with a soldier’s coat and cap on, under his protection. But this method was discovered and stopped, and eight only were able to make their escape by it.
We received the account of the United States ship Waspsinking the Reindeer and Avon. The particulars seemed too galling to their feelings to publish. After reading the account in the London paper, I composed a dirge, and put it up on the front of the prison, in full sight of all the soldier-officers and guards, as a tribute of respect to departed worthies of His Majesty’s navy.
Almost every draft of prisoners brought intelligence of new victories of the Americans by sea, and every British paper was filled with complaints of American privateers destroying British property in their own waters, and in sight of their cities. The prisoners, being animated with the success of the arms of their country, could not forbear expressing their joy in some pleasant feat. The following anecdote has something of the features of the attack of Don Quixotte on the wind-mill. The prisoners, the night after the news of the Wasp, took a jacket at twelve at night, lowered it down towards the ground along the rope of the prison; the soldiers saw it, and concluded it must be a man sliding down the rope to make his escape; the alarm was given, and Capt. Shortland and all the soldier-officers at the head of the picket, entered, and hailed the man on the rope, but no answer; they then drew themselves up in martial array, and every man sat his teeth and screwed his courage up to the sticking place, ready for battle; Capt. Shortland, an experienced officer, gave orders to fire, and instantly a volley of musketry was poured in upon the enemy, and down came the jacket; they rushed in upon it, and, to their astonishment, they had conquered a jacket.
The keepers who had been so insolent the day before, by wishing Mr. Madison in the prison, now showed great resentment, and gave themselves many airs upon the occasion. The soldiers discovered a candle burning in the prison, and called aloud, “put out that candle;” but the order not being instantly obeyed, they discharged a volley through the window; but a divine interposition of goodness seemed to direct the balls, for every one lodged in some part of the hammocks, which almost formed a solid column, and not a single man hurt or touched, though asleep in the hammocks. The next morning I thought the battle with the jacket and the attack on the sleeping prisoners deserved to be celebrated in some signal way, and sung like the deeds of the gallant Quixotte.
It had been remarked by the prisoners that, about the timeof some reverse of the arms of the enemy, the keepers treated them with much greater severity, and seemed to wish to wreak their vengeance in retaliation on the prisoners.
On the eighteenth, orders, together with a list of names, came to discharge sixty-two of the crew of the late United States brig Frolic, who had been exchanged, and were to repair immediately to Dartmouth, thirty miles from the depot, to go on board the cartel Janey, then lying at that place with the greater part of her number, which consisted of prisoners late belonging to the United States navy and army.
Those sixty-two of the Frolic were obliged to carry the baggage themselves or leave it behind, for they were allowed no means to transport it. Twelve miles of the distance is water carriage; the other eighteen is land—this distance they had to march on foot; they received a shilling each man, and one day’s provision, at the commencement of the journey.
By letters from Plymouth, we received intelligence that another cartel, the St. Philip, was preparing to take on board part of her complement at that place, then to proceed to Dartmouth, and receive the crew of the late United States brig Argus, and her officers, and non-combatants from Ashburton. The same letters informed us that all the prisoners in England, then nearly five thousand, would shortly be removed to this prison; and, accordingly, at the latter end of this month they all were removed to this depot, and made, with some few lately from sea, five thousand and twenty. They were badly prepared to stand the inclemency of the approaching season; they were all miserably clothed, and the shoes they had received from Mr. Beasley lasted but a few weeks, and they were now quite destitute and very sickly, and the weather cold and stormy for several days together. On the third we received a letter from Mr. Beasley, informing us that his clerk, Mr. Williams, was on his way from London to this place with clothing, which he would distribute among the prisoners captured since the middle of last May, and to those captured before that date he would deliver one shirt and one pair of shoes and stockings, which should be their supply for nine months. The old prisoners stated their situation to Mr. Beasley, by letter, at the same date, and informed him that they were in need of clothing; that what they received in May was worn out, also their shoes, and that they were not supplied with sufficient bedding to make them any way comfortable through the approachingwinter, especially as they were sickly, and had the small-pox in the prison, and that they should not be able to endure the hardships of their condition, though their two and a half pence a day was some relief; yet as all the workmen were turned into prison, and not permitted to go out any more on account of one man, whom we believe to be Capt. Swain, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, taking a very sudden move and leaving the whole establishment without giving notice; this left them unprovided with sufficient means to take care of themselves.
Now the surly blasts of chill November had made all surrounding nature wear the sad aspect of decay, and the barefooted prisoner stood shivering by the walls, in the pale and feeble ray of a winter sun, when Mr. Williams arrived with the clothing, as was expected, and on the third saw the crew of the Argus take their departure from this prison, to go on board the St. Philip, then lying at Dartmouth, bound for the United States. The draft of this crew consisted of one hundred, which was all that was taken from this place; she had previously taken in her complement, except this number, at Chatham. Shortly after her sailing from Dartmouth she was so unfortunate as to spring her mast, and obliged to return into port.
At this time the Phebe and the late United States frigate Essex arrived in England. The editors who published the arrival of these two ships, made no remark or observation whatever, only barely said they had arrived.
The reader will not have forgotten the circumstance of the four men, whom we mentioned were committed to close confinement during the war, on suspicion of an intention to blow up the ship. We, at this time, made application to the Board of Transport, to mitigate the punishment of these four men, late of the Surprise, and who had remained ever since in close confinement in the cachot, but our petition was not granted; the board said the sentence had passed and could not be recalled—they must suffer according to the sentence. These poor fellows had endured the three months imprisonment with a magnanimity becoming Americans. The prisoners seeing they could not get them relieved, agreed to allow them a halfpenny a month out of every man’s pay, which was cheerfully done by every man. They supplied them with such articles as the board would allow them to have.
Our hope now brightened amidst the clouds of sufferings anddespair, by the reports from Ghent of a speedy peace, which swelled every London paper.
The guards, both officers and soldiers, stationed here, were much disaffected with the government of the country; and informed us that the military through the whole kingdom had the same disaffection, and that they had gone so far as to inform the government, in direct terms, that if a peace did not take place before the first of April, that they would lay down their arms.
The battle and destruction of Washington had now crossed the Atlantic, and was sounding with great applause to the British arms; every paper was swelled with the most pompous description of the great battle, and the unparalleled bravery and magnanimity of their officers and soldiers, that had defeated and drove the whole American army, headed by Mr. Madison in person, and that they were in so close pursuit of him that he had a severe race all the way from Bladensburgh to Washington, which they were disposed to ridicule by comparing to John Gilpin’s celebrated race.
They also gave a description of Washington, which they declared was one of the greatest cities in the known world; the grandeur and magnificence of it surpassed that of Paris or London; it contained thirteen hundred spacious squares. But they did not mention that those squares contained no houses or inhabitants.
These stories could not gain the belief of persons acquainted with the American nation and its capitol, but we were led to believe that the conduct on both sides deserved much censure, and that the burning of that capitol was a disgrace to both nations.
Nothing very material occurred among the prisoners this month; they received their monthly pay as usual, but were more sickly, and the weather cold and tedious, but could not be compared with the November before. The prisoners, though far from being as comfortable as they ought to be, suffered much less, and were in a better condition to endure the hardships of a prison than the year before, now they were supplied with one pair of shoes and stockings, and allowed two and a half pence per day. They did not shrink at the approaching season so much as before.
Mr. Williams returned to London at the end of the month;he had been with us all the month, distributing the several articles above mentioned.
As the season advanced the hard weather increased, and the snow fell in great abundance in the beginning of December, and the prisoners, much chilled with the cold, applied for permission to keep fire, as had been permitted to the French prisoners, but were peremptorily refused and absolutely forbid.
But to make the best of these evils of life, they applied themselves every man to some occupation; they endeavored to cherish and keep the mind alive if the body decayed, and to cultivate that nobler part of our being, they established a number of schools, and the young men and boys were instructed in them for nearly two years, and many of them, who were perfectly unacquainted with letters when they came to this prison, had acquired a tolerable education in the English branches of science.
There has, from the earliest ages of antiquity, been frequent instances of men who have been weary of life, and had not the courage and fortitude to bear those ills which are incident to it, and have, therefore, by a sort of false heroism, attempted to avoid them by destroying their own life. The Stoic philosophy, which seemed to be a cultivated degree of insensibility, encouraged it, and called it heroism; but the act is cowardly, and a great offence against the laws of God and man.
I have thought proper to premise these observations, before I related the melancholy instance of a young man, a native of the city of New York, by the name of John Taylor, who put an end to his life on the first of this month, by hanging himself, in prison No. 5.
By the position in which he was found in the morning, he must have been all intent on death; he had fastened himself to one of the stantions so that his toes could just touch the floor. We knew of no other cause than that despair had given him less courage to live than to die.
Thinking it might tend to deter others from following the example of this unhappy victim of despair, I procured a large slate, and engraved on it the following inscription, which I put at the head of his grave, where it remains on the moor:
Here liesJOHN TAYLOR,A native citizen of the city of New York,Who committed suicide, by hanging himselfin prison No. 5, on the eveningof the first of December, 1814.
I then put over each prison, as acaveat, the followingmemento, as it was feared others would do the same act:
Whene’er you view this doleful tomb,Remember what you are,And put your trust in God alone:Suppress that fiend, Despair.Lo! there’s entomb’d a generous youthDespair did doom to die;By the hard act of suicide,John Taylor there doth lie.He hung himself within yon walls,—A warning may it prove:Tho’ man is wicked here below,There’s a just God above.Be patient, meek, and wait His call,Endure these ills of strife:For great’s the sin of mortal man,That takes away his life.
Whene’er you view this doleful tomb,Remember what you are,And put your trust in God alone:Suppress that fiend, Despair.Lo! there’s entomb’d a generous youthDespair did doom to die;By the hard act of suicide,John Taylor there doth lie.He hung himself within yon walls,—A warning may it prove:Tho’ man is wicked here below,There’s a just God above.Be patient, meek, and wait His call,Endure these ills of strife:For great’s the sin of mortal man,That takes away his life.
Whene’er you view this doleful tomb,Remember what you are,And put your trust in God alone:Suppress that fiend, Despair.
Whene’er you view this doleful tomb,
Remember what you are,
And put your trust in God alone:
Suppress that fiend, Despair.
Lo! there’s entomb’d a generous youthDespair did doom to die;By the hard act of suicide,John Taylor there doth lie.
Lo! there’s entomb’d a generous youth
Despair did doom to die;
By the hard act of suicide,
John Taylor there doth lie.
He hung himself within yon walls,—A warning may it prove:Tho’ man is wicked here below,There’s a just God above.
He hung himself within yon walls,—
A warning may it prove:
Tho’ man is wicked here below,
There’s a just God above.
Be patient, meek, and wait His call,Endure these ills of strife:For great’s the sin of mortal man,That takes away his life.
Be patient, meek, and wait His call,
Endure these ills of strife:
For great’s the sin of mortal man,
That takes away his life.
One knows not how to account for the origin of that act which takes away one’s own life: self-love and self-preservation are so deeply rooted in the very nature of all living creatures, that it is the ultimate motive of all actions to endeavor to sustain and preserve life; fear of destroying it is so instinctive in all animals that they seem to flee from danger without any reasoning in the act, and almost without knowing when the volition begins.
But the suicide reverses everything; he does an act which is not natural, not rational, not desirable, and dangerous; he rushes into the presence of his God with all his former crimes, and this most heinous of all brings him there.
From the first to the twenty-sixth nothing material occurred, but a constant fall of snow every day; but the season was less severe than that of the year before.
In the interim, prisoners arrived from different quarters of the globe; some taken in Canada on the lakes, and others on the land; and amongst these arrivals was the crew of the privateer Leo, captured off the coast of Portugal.
On the twenty-ninth, we were most agreeably surprised with the joyful tidings of peace! The preliminaries were announced in the London paper which we received this day, and the news was confirmed by a letter from Mr. Beasley, received the same day, stating that the treaty had been signed by the Commissioners at Ghent, on the 24th, and that the sloop-of-war Favorite would sail with the treaty on the second of January, one thousand eight hundred and fifteen, with all possible speed, for the United States, and that three months would release every man from confinement.
Language is too feeble to describe the transports of joy that so suddenly and unexpectedly filled every heart. Every man forgot the many tedious days and nights he had so often numbered over within these prison walls. The memory of his better days rose fresh in his mind, and he once more hoped to return to his native country, which he had so long despaired of ever revisiting; his liberty, the embraces of his friends, he knew better how to prize by being so long deprived of them. The delicious fruits of plenty he could by his imagination taste.
The prison was now in great confusion and bustle in preparing to celebrate the peace, which we were confident would be honorable to our country. We were confident that the ground-work of the treaty must be free trade and sailors’ rights, and made arrangements to celebrate it in a manner conformable to the rights of the ocean.
We obtained a quantity of powder of the soldiers, unknown to the keepers, and made large cartridges, wound them up in twine, so that when exploded would make a report as loud as a six-pounder; we then procured a large ensign, and a pendant for each prison; we prepared a white flag in the centre, painted in large capitals, “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights.”
The next morning, to the astonishment of the officers and guards, we displayed the flags on the top of each prison; and on No. 3, which was styled the Commodore, displayed thewhite flag with the above motto, and at the same time fired a salute of seventeen rounds.
Shortly after, Capt. Shortland entered the yard, and politely requested the white flag, containing the motto, to be taken down, as it would draw censure upon him from the government, by holding out inducements for the sailors to mutinise; he said the government of Great Britain took care to suppress all such inflammatory mottoes. But the prisoners were too full of spirits to comply with the request at that time. They continued it till towards evening, when he again entered and solicited us to take it down, or everything would be in confusion; he said if we would take the motto-flag down, he would hoist an American ensign on one end of his own house, and a British one on the other end; and if we were not contented with this he would order them all down; we then told him, out of respect for him, we would take them all down, and wait till the ratification of peace before we displayed them again.
On the thirty-first of this month arrived a draft of prisoners, among whom were many who had given themselves up as American citizens, and claimed their right to a citizenship, and refused to act on board his Majesty’s ships any longer; these the prisoners did not give a very welcome reception, for they had delayed till the act had become a wilful aiding and assisting the enemy, and the mischief now over. The constant cry among the sailors, who are great friends to Uncle Sam, was, “Damn my eyes if he han’t stood it like a man.”
Among those prisoners who had declared themselves citizens of the United States, were six who had been in the enemy’s service for many years, and were on board His Majesty’s ship Pelican when she engaged the United States brig Argus, and took a very active part in the action against the Argus; every man of them had been appointed to some petty office on board the Pelican. But, supposing a peace would shortly be concluded between the two nations, they had thought best to claim a citizenship, and obtain their release. This information soon spread among all the prisoners, and enraged them to the highest degree at their conduct; and being flushed with high spirits with the late news of peace, were about to proceed to extremities with them, and they, finding their lives were in danger, applied to Capt. Shortland for protection, who entered the prison yard with guards and took these traitorous villainsalong, and we believe they went back into his Majesty’s service, as the next day they were conveyed to Plymouth, and we heard no more of them.
The weather was now very severe, and the oldest prisoners had not received any clothing since May, and were much in need of jackets and trowers, of this fact the prisoners were a self-evident and naked truth. Many were sick in the hospital.
December thirty-first, 1814. Statement of prisoners in prison at this depot:
Mr. Beasley, agent, had visited them once. They had received from him one jacket, one pair of trowsers, two shirts, two pair of shoes, and two pair of stockings, each man.
Received from the British government, one hammock, one blanket, one horse rug, one bed, one yellow jacket, one pair of trowers, one waistcoat, one pair of wooden shoes, and one cap.
Received in cash one and a half pence, to which was added one penny more after two months, each man per day, from the first of January, 1814.
The weather still continued cold, and the oldest prisoners had not as yet received any shoes or clothes, but were daily expecting them from Mr. Beasley.
We had been in this cold and dreary mansion twenty-one months, and the above items were all the assistance we had received from Beasley, the only person in this foreign land of our enemies to whom we could look for any assistance, or from whom we had any right to expect it.
Our ears had been constantly assailed with the groans of the sick and the dying; pestilence and disease had been our constant companions; our minds had become almost distracted betwixt the grief for our departed friends and fellow-prisoners and the hunger and want of our own body. From such a long series of incessant sufferings, it is natural to suppose that the bodies were emaciated and the mind debilitated; and much of the sameness that may appear in this narrative is owing to a uniform state of misery, which will not admit of a variety in the description.
Capt. Shortland had got information on the second of November, 1815, that the prisoners had counterfeited three shilling pieces, and passed them to the market people, for their country produce, and shortly after he detected two men attempting to pass bad money; he had them apprehended immediately, and sent to the cachot.
Nothing worthy of note occurred till the twentieth, when two men lately arrived were discovered to be the same who had entered the British service the winter before. After having received many insults, and much hard usage, on board the war ships, they had got tired of their situations, and claimed their citizenship and got themselves delivered up and sent to prison again, which they considered the least of the two evils.
Their conduct on board the ships, was no doubt as disgraceful as the act they committed to bring them there; they shifted from ship to ship, till the one wherein they claimed their citizenship was ignorant of the manner they had come into the service. The prisoners being highly enraged at such conduct, made strict inquiry into the matter, and found the facts as above mentioned.—After holding consultations, many were for putting them to immediate death, others were for flogging them as severely as they could bear, and every man for giving them some condign punishment; but at last it was unanimously concluded to put upon them a mark, which would be a lasting stigma, and an example for others. They seized and took the traitors into prison, and fastened them to a table, so that they could not resist, and then, with needles and India ink, pricked U. S. on one cheek, and T. on the other; which is United States Traitor. After we let them go, they were taken immediately to the hospital, and their faces blistered on both sides, to endeavor to extract the ink, but this only made it brighter and sink deeper in. The doctors reported the traitors to be in a very dangerous state, and that their lives were despaired of. If this had been the case, it must only proceed from the application they had made use of, for no harm could arise from marking.
The next day, Capt Shortland being offended at the treatment of his friends had received, sent and had three men taken, whom he suspected were concerned in the affair, and put them into the cachot, where they were examined not long after by the King’s solicitor, and there ordered to remain till the next Exeter assizes, then and there to be tried by the laws of this country. On the twenty-fifth arrived five hundred suits of clothes, which were distributed among those who had last arrived.
The weather being very severe, and great quantities of snow falling, the men were obliged to keep within doors. On the same day arrived a regiment of regular troops, who themselves had been prisoners in France for many years during the late war between that nation and England.—They were much disgusted with the treatment we received here, and exclaimed against the authors of it, whoever they might be, and declared they had not received such treatment in France.
At this time, the government not being so strict in their charge the military, and the keepers not so strict in putting them in execution, and these new guards being very friendly, gave us a fine opportunity to escape over the walls, and many made their escape in dark stormy nights. This continued for some time, till one man was taken on the wall, in the very act; then it was stopped, and strict orders given.
On the twenty-sixth a draft of prisoners arrived, among whom were the crew of the privateer Neuf-Chattel of New York, lately captured, and two navy officers captured on the lakes. On the twenty-eighth these officers received their parole, and proceeded on to Ashburton, where all the paroled officers were stationed.
Nantucket Neutrality.
On the thirtieth, Sir Isaac Coffin arrived with another British admiral; Sir Isaac is a native of Massachusetts, and feeling some partiality to his native statesmen, requested Capt. Shortland to permit all the men who belonged to Nantucket to come alone into market square, which request was of course granted. He himself and the other admiral, whose name we did not learn, held a long conversation with the Nantucket men, and inquired the particulars of their birth, their friends and places of residence; they then told them, should the war continue, they would be released, on account of belonging to a neutral Country.—They then took an affectionate leave of the citizens of that neutral nation, and went away. Such are the advantages derived from being a neutral nation in the time of war.
February commences with much snow and cold; the prisoners in great anxiety for the ratification of the treaty.
On the fourth arrived a draft of prisoners, lately captured in the privateer Brutus. At this time a new, and most dreadful calamity now alarmed and endangered the life of every man; the African pox had, by some unfortunate means, got amongthe prisoners, and threatened destruction to every living soul. The disorder was so violent that when it attacked a person, he had nothing to expect but immediate death; numbers died daily.
On the fifth, the London papers mentioned two American frigates cruising in the channel, which excited great alarm.
On the sixth, the pestilence had grown so mortal, that the chief surgeon in England visited the prison; he imagined the distemper to arise from a want of pure air; that so many people crowded together in one building must render the air very impure, and unfit for respiration. He tried the difference of temperature of the air in the prison, and outside, which he found to differ twenty-five degrees by Farenheit’s thermometer, the air being much warmer inside. This difference of heat arose entirely from the heat of the human body, as no fire was kept in the prisons; each prison now contained about 1200 persons on an average. It is highly probable the distemper had generated itself in the bad state of air, and had not been introduced from abroad, as was first supposed.
On the eighth arrived an order from the Board of Transport, for Capt. Shortland to ascertain the number and description of all prisoners belonging to the Island of Nantucket, for the purpose of giving them their discharge; like the citizens of Denmark and Sweden, they were neutral.
On the tenth arrived a draft of prisoners, lately captured on their voyage to France; on the same day a number of prisoners were called on to give evidence on the part of the crown, concerning the marking the traitors in the cheek.
The king’s solictor was a long while busy in endeavouring to obtain information, but all the satisfaction he got was, that they had heard by report that the men that marked the traitors, were to be tried at Exeter the next assizes. At the same time a small quantity of clothing arrived from Mr. Beasley, who it seemed always took care to send clothing to those who last arrived, as in this instance, although they had not been prisoners but a few weeks; he seemed to have an idea that they always come into prison naked, and when they were there, one suit would last them all their life; for the oldest prisoners had not received any clothing since the last May, and it was now ten months, and every garment entirely worn out. He supposed, that during two years imprisonment, such as we had had, we must have got used to every species of hardship, and thatgoing naked was so slight an evil that we did not mind it at all.
During the interval of time since the peace, anotherslightevil, somewhat similar to the above, had befallen us, for the contractor, seeing we were shortly to go to a land of plenty, was determined to show us the difference in a man’s feelings between eating and going without; so he gave us no more than the simpleton gave his horse while learning him to live without eating.
On the thirteenth, one of the four prisoners, whom we mentioned before were sentenced last August to remain in the cachot during the war, watched an opportunity to get among the other prisoners in the yard, being let into the yard of that building for the benefit of the fresh air, and seeing the attention of the turnkeys and soldiers occupied by some other object, at this time jumped over the iron railing that separated this building from the yards of Nos. 1, 2, and 3, and got undiscovered amongst the other prisoners; the morning following he was missed by the keepers, and information given to Capt. Shortland, who demanded the man from among us immediately that he be returned to the cachot again.
The prisoners positively refused to give the man up, and declared that no force of arms should wrest him from their protection. He then ordered the market closed, and would not allow any communication with it, and refused the prisoners every privilege, and gave them only their allowance.
On the fourteenth, he entered the yard at the head of two hundred soldiers with fixed bayonets, and ordered every prisoner to retire within the prisons, that search might be made for the prisoner, and he again remanded to the cachot; but all the prisoners having previously agreed to stand by each other, and if they attempted to use any violence, to surround and disarm them; a signal was given to surround, and the soldiers were immediately surrounded, and the intention made known to the officers, and advised to retire, unless they were determined to risk the consequence. They then very prudently ordered the soldiers to fall back, and retire without the yard, and leave the man whom they sought.
The captain still harboring rancor in his breast, thought to compel us to give up the man by force of starvation, and kept the markets closed against us, and compelled us to subsist solely on our scant allowance; but we, to retaliate, forbid allprisoners going out of the yard to work, who at this time were about forty or fifty carpenters, masons, and other mechanics, who were a great profit to the government; this step put Shortland to great expense and inconvenience to procure others.
He at last concluded to make peace and restore tranquility, and let the man remain; and, on the twentieth, he again opened the markets to the prisoners, and we permitted the workmen to go out and work again. The other three men remained in the cachot, but a stronger guard was placed? there, otherwise we were determined to release them by force.
On the twenty-second, arrived a draft of prisoners, lately captured off the Cape of Good Hope, among whom were the crew of the late United States brig Syren; the treatment of these men before they arrived at this place will be mentioned in the supplements to this work. These, together with others taken in other parts, arrived since the last enumeration on the last day of one thousand eight hundred and fourteen, made in all at this depot five thousand eight hundred and fifty, which were all the prisoners in England, except officers on parole. The prisoners were barefooted, and very sickly.
On the twenty-sixth of this month, is gazetted in the London papers, the official account of the capture of the United States frigate President, Com. Decatur.
The editor says she was captured solely by the Endymion, of far inferior force; he says the engagement was in the old English style, yard-arm to yard-arm. Knowing this to be a falsehood, I addressed a letter to the editor, requesting him to read a short piece of poetry which I enclosed.
March commenced with cold and blustering weather, and the prison almost one continued scene of sick and dying, the small-pox was raging with a desolating aspect, and the greatest anxiety concerning the ratification of the treaty; afflictions, which seem never to come singly, were now pressing upon the back of one another; pestilence, famine and nakedness were not affliction enough, phrensy must be added.
On the fourth, a man in the hospital, in a sudden fit of insanity, seized a knife and stabbed two of the nurses very dangerously, of which wounds Jonathan Paul died on the tenth, the other survived.
On inquiry into the circumstances of the deceased, we found him to have been a married man, and his wife had lived a littledistance from the prison since his confinement, who was in very narrow circumstances.
We all agreed to give her the day’s allowance of fish of that week, which we sold to the contractor and received the money, which amounted to nearly one hundred dollars; this sum she received, and returned to her residence on the day of the death of her husband.
On this day, also, the three men who were put into close confinement for marking the traitors on the face, were taken out of the custody of the agent of prisoners of war at this place, by a writ ofhabeas corpus ad respodendum, and removed to the criminal prison at Exeter, to be tried for the offence by the civil laws of this country. They were removed in irons. The prisoners then made a contribution for the support of these men while at Exeter.
On the tenth, we received London papers, which gave an account of Bonaparte’s having arrived in France at the head of about one thousand men, and that he was making the most rapid advances toward Paris, and thousands joining him; that the greatest confusion was taking place in the affairs of France.
This intelligence struck the greatest astonishment in all England, and created a very serious concern among all the military, who expected to be relieved on the arrival of the treaty ratified by the President, but now they must despair of that idea, as new wars must inevitably follow the steps of that gigantic monster.
On the fourteenth, a universal joy was diffused through the whole prison, and “a smile lighted up in the aspect of woe;” the Favorite, the welcome messenger of peace, arrived, and brought the treaty, ratified by the President of the United States.
I cannot better express the joy that diffused itself through the whole country, Englishmen as well as prisoners, than by giving the following lines from a great author: