A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed.

After we left the street, we found the road extremely dusty, which rendered it very unpleasant in walking close to each other. Before we got half way to the prison, there was a very heavy shower of rain, so that by the time we arrived there we looked as if we had been wallowing in the mud. Our unfeeling conductors marched us nine miles before they allowed us to rest; never once considering how unfit we were, from our long confinement, for travelling. Where we were allowed to stop, a butt of beer was placed in a cart for sale. Had British prisoners been marching through New-England, a butt of beer, or good cider would have been placed for them free of all expense; but Old England is not New-England by a great deal, whatever Governor Strong may think of his adorable country of kings, bishops and missionary societies.17 Here a fresh escort of soldiers relieved those who brought us from Plymouth. The commanding officer of this detachment undertook to drive us from the beer-cart before all of us had a taste of it; he rode in among us, and flourished his sword, with a view to frighten us; but we refused to stir till we were ready, and some of our company called him a damned lobster backed –, for wishing to drive us away before every one had his drink. The man was perplexed, and knew not what to do. At last the booby did what he ought to have done at first—forced the beer-seller to drive off his cart. But it is the fate of British officers of higher rank than this one, to think and act at last of that which they ought to have thought, and acted upon at first. They are no match for the yankees, in contrivance, or in execution. This beer barrel is an epitome of all their conduct in their war with America. What old woman put the idea into this officer's head I know not; but it is a fact, as soon as the beer barrel was driven off, we were all ready to march off too! And few companies of vagabonds in England ever marched off to prison in better spirits; we cheered one another, and laughed at our profound leader, until we came in sight of the black, bleak, and barren moor, without a solitary bush or blade of grass. Some of our prisoners swore that we had marched the whole length of England, and got into Scotland. We all agreed that it was not credible that such a hideous, barren spot could be any where found in England.

Our old men-of-wars-men suffered the most. Many of these had not set their feet on the earth for seven years, and they had lost in a measure, the natural operation of their feet and legs. These naval veterans loitered behind, attended by a guard. In ascending a hill we were some distance from the main body, and by turning a corner the rear was concealed from the van. Two young men took advantage of this, and jumped over a wall, and lay snug under it; but being observed, the guard fired, which alarmed those in front, when some soldiers pursued them, and seeing the impossibility of escaping, the young men jumped over the wall again, and mixed in with their companions without their being able to identify their persons. Our driver was extremely perplexed and alarmed at our daring attempts.

On crawling up the long and ragged hill, we became wearied, and refused to walk so fast as did the guard. No prudent officer would have driven men on as we were driven. We should have rested every two or three miles.—The sun was sinking below the horizon when we gained the top of the hill which commanded a view of Dartmoor prison. We passed through a small collection of houses called Princetown, where were two inns. The weather was disagreeable after the shower, and we saw the dark-hued prisons, whose sombre and doleful aspect chilled our blood. Yonder, cried one of our companions, is the residence of four thousand five hundred men, and in a few minutes we shall add to the number of its wretches. Others said, in that place will be sacrificed the aspiring feelings of youth, and the anxious expectations of relatives. There, said I, shall we bury all the designs of early emulation. I never felt disheartened before. I shed tears when I thought of home, and of my wretched situation, and I cursed the barbarity of a people among whom we were driven more like hogs than fellow men and Christians. I had weathered adverse gales with fortitude; and never flinched amidst severities. "A taught bowstring," was always my motto; but here I gave way for a moment, to despair, and wished the string to snap asunder and end my misery; for I had not even the consolation of a criminal going to execution to brace up the cord of life and inspire hope beyond the grave. The idea of lingering out a wretched existence in a doleful prison, dying by piece-meals, my flesh wasting by hunger, my frame exhausting by thirst, and my spirits broken down by a tyrant, and by jostling with misfortunes, I could not avoid. If death, instead of knocking at my prison door, would enter it at once, I would thank the goal deliverer. I am now comforted with the conviction, that nothing but an early religious education could have preserved me at this, and some other times of my misery, from destroying myself.

We soon arrived at the gates of this very extensive prison, and were admitted into the first yard, for it had several. We there answered to the call of our names; and at length passed through the iron gates to prison No. 7. We requested the turnkey to take in our baggage, as it contained our bedding; but it was neglected, and rained on during the night; for on this bleak and drizzly mountain there are not more than ninety fair days in the year. It took us several days to dry our duds, for they merited not the name of baggage.

The moment we entered the dark prison, we found ourselves jammed in with a multitude; one calling us to come this way, another that; some halloing, swearing and cursing, so that I did not know, for a moment, but what I had died through fatigue and hard usage, and was actually in the regions of the damned. Oh, what a horrid night I here passed!

The floors of this reproach to Old England were of stone, damp and mouldy, and smelling like a transport. Here we had to lay down and sleep after a most weary march of 15 miles. What apology can be made for not having things prepared for our comfort? Those who have been enslaved in Algiers found things very different. The food and the lodging were in every respect superior among the Mahometans, than among these boasting Christians, and their general treatment infinitely more humane; some of our companions had been prisoners among the Barbary powers, and they describe them as vastly more considerate than the English.

After passing a dreadful night, we next day had opportunity of examining our prison. It had iron stanchions, like those in stables for horses, on which hammocks were hung. The windows had iron gratings, and the bars of the doors seemed calculated to resist the force of men, and of time. These things had a singular effect on such of us, as had, from our childhood, associated the idea of liberty with the name of Old England; but a man must travel beyond the smoke of his own chimney to acquire correct ideas of the characters of men, and of nations.—We however saw the worst of it at first; for every day our residence appeared less disagreeable.

We arrived here the 11th of October; and our lot was better than that of thirty of our companions, who came on a little after us from Plymouth. These 30 men were sent from the West-Indies, and had no descriptive lists, and it was necessary that these men should be measured and described as to stature, complexion, &c.—Capt. Shortland therefore ordered them to be shut up in the prison No. 6. This was a more cold, dreary and comfortless place than No. 7. Their bed was nothing but the cold damp stones; and being in total darkness they dare not walk about. These 30 men had been imprisoned at Barbadoes; and they had supposed that when they arrived at this famous birth place of liberty, they should not be excluded from all her blessings. They had suffered much at Barbadoes, and they expected a different treatment in England; but alas! Captain Shortland at once dissipated the illusion and shewed himself what Britons really are. The next morning they were taken up to Captain Shortland's office to be described, and marked, and numbered. One of the thirty, an old and respectable Captain of an American ship, complained of his usage, and told Shortland that he had been several times a prisoner of war, but never experienced such barbarous treatment before. The man only replied that their not having their beds was the fault of the Turnkey; as if that could ever be admitted as an excuse among military men. [

For a minute description of Dartmoor Prison see the engraving.]

Dartmoor is a dreary spot of itself; it is rendered more so by the westerly winds blowing from the Atlantic ocean, which have the same quality and effects as the easterly wind, blowing from the same ocean, are known to have in New-England. This high land receives the sea mist and fogs; and they settle on our skins with a deadly dampness. Here reigns, more than two thirds of the year, "the Scotch mist," which is famous to a proverb. This moor affords nothing for subsistence or pleasure. Rabbits cannot live on it. Birds fly from it; and it is inhabited, according to the belief of the most vulgar, by ghosts and dæmons; to which will now doubtless be added, the troubled ghosts of the murdered American prisoners; and hereafter will be distinctly seen the tormented spirit of the bloody Capt. Shortland, clanking his chains, weeping, wailing and gnashing his teeth! It is a fact that the market people have not sufficient courage to pass this moor in the night. They are always sure to leave Princetown by day light, not having the resolution of passing this dreary, barren, and heaven-abandoned spot in the dark. Before the bloody massacre of our countrymen, this unhallowed spot was believed, by common superstition, to belong to the Devil.

Certain it is, that the common people in this neighbourhood were impressed with the notion that Dartmoor was a place less desirable to mortals, and more under the influence of evil spirits, than any other spot in England. I shall only say, that I found it, take it all in all, a less disagreeable prison than the ships; the life of a prudent, industrious, well behaved man might here be rendered pretty easy, for a prison life, as was the case with some of our own countrymen, and some Frenchmen; but the young, the idle, the giddy, fun making youth generally reaped such fruit as he sowed. Gambling was the wide inlet to vice and disorder; and in this Frenchmen took the lead. These men would play away every thing they possessed beyond the clothes to keep them decent. They have been known to game away a month's provision; and when they had lost it, would shirk and steal for a month after for their subsistence. A man with some money in his pocket might live pretty well through the day in Dartmoor Prison; there being shops and stalls where every little article could be obtained; but added to this we had a good and constant market; and the bread and meat supplied by government were not bad; and as good I presume as that given to British prisoners by our own government; had our lodging and prison-house been equal to our food, I never should have complained. The establishment was blessed with a good man for a physician, named M'Grath, an Irishman, a tall, lean gentleman, with one eye, but of a warm and good heart. We never shall cease to admire his disposition, nor forget his humanity.

The Frenchmen and our prisoners did not agree very well. They quarrelled and sometimes fought, and they carried their differences to that length, that it was deemed proper to erect a wall to separate them, like so many game cocks, in different yards. When this Depot was garrisoned by Highlanders, these Scotchmen took part with the Americans against the French. Here the old presbyterian principle of affinity operated against the papal man of sin. It cannot be denied that there is a deep rooted hatred between the Briton and the Frenchman.

While at Dartmoor Prison, there came certain French officers wearing the white cockade; their object seemed to be to converse with the prisoners, and to persuade them to declare for Louis 18th; but they could not prevail; the Frenchmen shouted vive l'Empereur! Their attachment to Bonaparte was remarkably strong. He must have been a man of wonderful powers to attach all ranks so strongly to him. Before the officers left the place, these Frenchmen hoisted up a little dog with the white cockade tied under his tail. Soon after this the French officers, who appeared to be men of some consideration, left the prison.

I have myself had nothing particular to complain of; but the prisoners here speak of Captain Shortland as the most detestable of men; and they bestow on him the vilest and most abusive epithets. The prisoners began to dig a hole under prison No. 6, and had made considerable progress towards the outer wall, when a man, who came from Newburyport betrayed them to Capt. Shortland. This man had, it was said, changed his name in America, on account of forgery.—Be that as it may, he was sick at Chatham where we paid him every attention, and subscribed money for procuring him the means of comfort. Shortland gave him two guineas, and sent him to Ireland; or the prisoners would have hanged him for a traitor to his countrymen. The hypocritical scoundrel's excuse was conscience and humanity; for he told Shortland that we intended to murder him, and every one else in the neighbourhood. Shortland said he knew better; that "he was fearful of our escaping, but never had any apprehensions of personal injury from an American; that they delighted in plaguing him and contriving the means of escape; but he never saw a cruel or murderous disposition in any of them."

The instant Capt. Shortland discovered the attempt to escape by digging a subterraneous passage, he drove all the prisoners into the yard of No. 1, making them take their baggage with them; and in a few days after, when he thought they might have begun another hole, but had not time to complete it, he moved them into another yard and prison, and so he kept moving them from one prison to the other, and took great credit to himself for his contrivance; and in this way he harrassed our poor fellows until the day before our arrival at the prison. He had said that he was resolved not to suffer them to remain in the same building and yard more than ten days at a time; and this was a hardship they resolved not voluntarily to endure; for the removal of hammocks and furniture and every little article, was an intolerable grievance; and the more the prisoners appeared pestered, the greater was the enjoyment of Captain Shortland. It was observed that whenever, in these removals, there were much jamming and squeezing and contentions for places, it gave this man pleasure; but that the ease and comfort of the prisoners gave him pain. The united opinion of the prisoners was, that he was a very bad hearted man. He would often stand on the military walk, or in the market square, whenever there was any difference, or tumult, and enjoy the scene with malicious satisfaction. He appeared to delight in exposing prisoners in rainy weather, without sufficient reason. This has sent many of our poor fellows to the grave, and would have sent more had it not been for the benevolence and skill of Dr. M'Grath. We thought Miller and Osmore skilled in tormenting; but Shortland exceeded them both by a devilish deal. The prisoners related to me several instances of cool and deliberate acts of torment, disgraceful to a government of Christians; for the character and general conduct of this commander could not be concealed from them. He wore the British colours on his house, and acted under this emblem of sovereignty.

It was customary to count over the prisoners twice a week; and after the sweepers had brushed out the prisons, the guard would send to inform the commander that they were all ready for his inspection. On these occasions, Shortland very seldom omitted staying away as long as he possibly could, merely to vex the prisoners; and they at length expressed their sense of it; for he would keep them standing until they were weary. At last they determined not to submit to it; and after waiting a sufficient time, they made a simultaneous rush forward, and so forced their passage back into their prison-house. To punish this act, Shortland stopped the country people from coming into market for two days. At this juncture we arrived; and as the increase of numbers, increased our obstinacy, the Captain began to relax; and after that, he came to inspect the prisoners, as soon as they were paraded for that purpose. It was easy to perceive that the prisoners had, in a great measure, conquered the hard hearted, and vindictive Capt. Shortland.

The roof of the prison to which we were consigned, was very leaky; and it rained on this dreary mountain almost continually; place our beds wherever we could, they were generally wet. We represented this to Capt. Shortland; and to our complaint was added that of the worthy and humane Dr. M'Grath; but it produced no effect; so that to the ordinary miseries of a prison, we, for a long time endured the additional one of wet lodgings, which sent many of our countrymen to their graves.

We owe much to the humanity of Dr. M'Grath, a very worthy man, and a native of Ireland. Was M'Grath commander of this Depot, there would be no difficulty with the prisoners. They would obey him through affection and respect; because he considers us rational beings, with minds cultivated like his own, and susceptible of gratitude, and habituated to do, and receive acts of kindness; whereas the great Capt. Shortland considers us all as a base set of men, degraded below the rank of Englishmen, towards whom nothing but rigor should be extended. He acted on this false idea; and has like his superiors reaped the bitter fruit of his own ill judged conduct. He might, by kind and respectful usage, have led the Americans to any thing just and honorable; but it was not in his power, nor all the Captains in his nation, to force them to acknowledge and quietly submit to his tyranny.

Dr. M'Grath was a very worthy man, and every prisoner loved him; but M'Farlane, his assistant, a Scotchman, was the reverse; in dressing, or bleeding, or in any operation, he would handle a prisoner with a brutal roughness, that conveyed the idea that he was giving way to the feelings of revenge, or national hatred.18 Cannot a Scotchman testify his unnatural loyalty to the present reigning family of England without treating an American with cruelty and contempt.

Dr. Dobson, the superintendant physician of the Hospital-ship at Chatham, was a very worthy and very skilful gentleman. We, Americans, ought never to forget his goodness towards us. Some of us esteem him full as high as Dr. M'Grath, and some more highly. They are both however, worthy men, and deserve well of this country. There is nothing men vary more in than in their opinion of and attachment to physicians. Dobson and M'Grath deserve medals of gold, and hearts of gratitude, for their kind attention to us all.

CHAPTER IV

The establishment of prison-ships at Chatham is broken up, and the last of the prisoners were marched from Plymouth to this place, the 30th of November. They were marched from that place to this, in one day, half leg deep in mud. Some lost their shoes; others, to preserve them, took them off, and carried them in their hands. When they arrived here, they were indeed objects of pity; nevertheless they were immediately shut up in a cold, damp prison, without any bedding, or any of the ordinary conveniences, until they could be examined and described in the commander's books; after which they were permitted to mix with the rest of their countrymen. We found many of them, the day after their arrival, unable to walk, by reason of their too long protracted march, in a very bad road. A prudent drover would not have risked his cattle by driving them through such a road in a few hours. Such a thing never was done in America, with British prisoners.

I find all the prisoners here deeply exasperated against Captain Shortland, and too much prejudiced to hear any thing in his favor. I presume they have reason for it. As I have but just arrived, I have had but little opportunity of seeing and judging his conduct. Instead of his being a bad hearted man, I am disposed to believe that the fault is in his understanding and education. I suspect that he is a man of narrow views; that he has not sufficient information, or capacity, to form a right judgment of the peculiar cast and character of the people under his charge. He has never, perhaps, considered, that these descendants of Englishmen, the free inhabitants of the new world, have been born and brought up in, if we may speak so, Indian freedom; on which freedom has been superinduced an education purely democratic, in schools where degrading punishments are unknown; where if a schoolmaster exercised the severity common in English and German schools, they would tie the master's hands with his own bell-rope. He has never considered that our potent militia choose their own officers; and that the people choose all their officers and leaders from among themselves; and that there are very few men indeed, none, perhaps, in New-England, who would refuse to shake hands with a decent yeoman. It is probable that Captain Shortland has never once reflected that there are fewer grades of men between the lowest white man under his charge and the highest in America, than there are between him and the highest ranks in England. He has never considered the similarity between the ancient Roman republican, and the republican of the United States of America; nor why both republics deemed it abhorrent to inflict stripes on their citizens. Shortland had not sufficient sagacity to discover that playfulness, fun and frolic, formed a strong trait in the character of the American sailor and militia man, for they had hardly become, what is called in Europe, soldiers; drilling and discipline had not obliterated the free and easy carriage of a bold and fearless Yankee.

Sir Guy Carlton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, was Governor of Canada, during the revolutionary war, and proved himself a wise man. He penetrated the American character, and treated the American prisoners captured in Canada, accordingly; and by doing so, he came near breaking up our army; for our prisoners were softened and subdued by his kindness and humanity; he sent them home well clothed, and well fed, and most of them declared they never would fight against Sir Guy Carlton. He knew the American character thoroughly; and was convinced that harshness and severity would have no other effect than to excite revenge and hatred. On the other hand, our prisoners could have no very great respect for a captain, an officer, which they themselves created by their votes, at pleasure; add to this, that several of the prisoners had the title of captain in their own country. Had the commander of Dartmoor Prison been an old woman, the Americans would have respected her sex and years, and obeyed her commands; but they despised and hated Shortland, for his deficiency of head, heart, and education; from all which originated those sad events which have disgraced one nation, and exasperated the other forever. Shortland may be excused, when it is considered that England lost her colonies by not studying the American character; and the same inattention to the natural operations of the human heart, is now raising America gradually up to be the first naval power on the terraqueous globe. And thus much for contempt.

There was an order that all lights should be put out by eight o'clock at night, in every prison; and it was doubtless proper; but this order was carried into execution with a rigor bordering on barbarity. On the least glimpse of light discoverable in the prison, the guard would fire in amongst us; and several were shot. Several Frenchmen were wounded. This story was told—that a French captain of a privateer, the night after he first came, was undressing himself, by his hammock, when the sentry cried, "Out lights!" The Frenchman not understanding English, kept it burning; the sentry fired, and scattered his brains over the place; but this did not occur while I was there; but this I aver, that several were shot, and I wondered that many were not killed. I was shocked at the barbarity of the order.