For now the kindred nations
Shall wage the fight no more;
No more in dreadful thunder dash
The billows to the shore:
Save when in firm alliance bound
Some common foe defied;
Then the brave, on the wave, &c. &c.
This captivity in a foreign land, has been to me a season of thoughtfulness. Sometimes I thought I was like a despised Jew, among the sons of the modern Babylon, which I might have sunk under, but for the first principles of a serious education; for I was born and educated in the state of Massachusetts, near an hundred miles from Boston. The subject of education has greatly occupied my mind, and I rejoiced that I was born in that part of the United States, where it is most attended to. It is an injury to our national character, that most of the books we read in early life, were written by Englishmen; as with their knowledge we imbibe their narrow prejudices. The present war, has, in a degree, corrected this evil; but time alone can effect all we wish.
A dispute arose between us and our commander, relative to the article of bread, which served to show Englishmen how tenacious we, Americans, are on what we consider to be our rights.
Whenever the contractor omitted to send us off soft bread, provided the weather did not forbid, the said contractor forfeited half a pound of bread to each man. The prisoners were not acquainted with this rule, until they were informed of it by the worthy captain Hutchinson; and they determined to enforce the regulation on the next act of delinquency of the contractor. This opportunity soon occurred. He omitted to send us off soft bread in fair weather; our commander, Mr. O. thereupon ordered us to be served with hard ship bread. This we declined accepting, and contended that the contractor was bound to send us off the soft bread, with an additional half pound, which he forfeited to us for his breach of punctuality. Now the contractor had again and again incurred this forfeiture, which went into Mr. O's pocket, instead of our stomachs, and this mal-practice we were resolved to correct. Our commander then swore from the teeth outwards, that if we refused his hard bread, we should have none; and we swore from the teeth, inwardly, that we would adhere to our first declaration, and maintain our rights. Finding us obstinate, he ordered us all to be driven into the pound by the marines, and the ladder drawn up. Some of the prisoners, rather imprudently, cast some reflections on Mr. O. and his family; in consequence of which, he ordered us all to be driven below, and the hatches closed upon us; and he represented to the commodore that the prisoners were in a state of mutiny. He was so alarmed that he sent the female part of his family on shore for safety, and requested a reinforcement of marines. At the same time we made a representation to the commodore, and stated our grievances, in our own way, and we demanded the extra half pound of soft bread, forfeited by the contractor. In all this business we were as fierce and as stubborn, and talked as big as a combination of collegians, to redress bad commons. We remained in this situation two days; one from each mess going on deck for a supply of water, was all the intercourse we had with our superiors. During all this time, we found we had got hold of the heaviest end of the timber. We found it very hard contending against increasing hunger, and should have been very glad of a few hard biscuit. Some began to grow slack in their resistance; and even the most obstinate allowed their ire to cool a little. To lay such an embargo on our own bowels was, be sure, a pretty tough piece of self-denial; for we found; in all our sufferings, that bread was, the staff of life. We were about taking the general opinion by a vote, whether it was best to eat hard biscuit, or starve? Just as we were about taking this important vote, in which, I suspect, we should have been unanimous, the commodore and Capt. Hutchinson came on board to inquire into the cause of the dispute; and this lucky, and well timed visit, saved our credit; and established the Yankee character for inflexibility, beyond all doubt or controversy. These two worthy gentlemen soon discovered that Mr. O. had made representations not altogether correct. They therefore ordered the hatches to be taken off, and proper bread to be served out, and so the dispute ended.
What added to our present satisfaction was, that Mr. my Lord Beasly was to allow us two pence half penny sterling per day, for coffee, tobacco, &c. We now, to use the sailor's own expressive phrase, looked up one or two points nearer the wind than ever.
That Mr. O. had been in the royal navy from his infancy, and now, at the age of forty five, ranks no higher than a lieutenant. He once commanded a sloop, and had the character of severity. He had an amiable wife and many children, who lived in the prison ship. Lieut. O. was not the wisest man in all England. He exercised his cunning, it was said, in making money out of his station; but he was under the immediate control of two honorable gentlemen, otherwise, it is probable, we should have felt more instances of his revenge than he dared, at all times, show.
CHAPTER VI.
It is now the last day of February, 1814. The severity of an English winter, which is generally milder than the winters of New-England, is past; and we are as comfortable as can be expected on board a prison ship; we have a few cents a day to buy coffee, sugar or tobacco; add to these, we have the luxury of newspapers, which is a high gratification to the well known curiosity of a genuine Yankee, by which cant term we always mean a New-England man. We have been laughed at, by the British travellers, for our insatiable curiosity; but such should remember, that their great moralist, Johnson, tells us that curiosity is the thirst of the soul, and is a never-failing mark of a vigorous intellect. The Hottentot has no curiosity—the woolly African has no curiosity—the vacant minded Chinese has no curiosity—but the brightest sons of Old England and New, are remarkable for it; insomuch that they are often the dupes of it. How many thousand guineas a year are acquired by artful foreigners, in feeding this appetite of our relation, the renowned John Bull? and yet he is never satisfied; his mouth is open still, and so wide, very lately, that Bonaparte had like to have jumped into it, suit and all!!
We should have taken, perhaps, more satisfaction in the perusal of these newspapers, had they not been so excessively expensive. We took the Statesman, the Star, and Bell's Weekly Messenger; and some part of the time, the Whig. The expense of the Statesman was defrayed by the sale of green fish to the contractor. The Star was taken by the Frenchmen; the Whig and Bell's Weekly Messenger, by individuals. We paid twenty-eight shillings sterling per month, for the Statesman, which is twice the price of a newspaper in Boston, for a whole year. Besides it costs us sixteen shillings per month to get these papers conveyed on board. The reader will probably say, in the language of Dr. Franklin's allegory, that considering our destitute condition, "we paid dear for our whistle." These newspapers were smuggled, or pretended to be smuggled; our commander's pocket was not the lighter for New-England "quidnuncism." But every day afforded instances of meanness; scraping misery to the bone, for a few pence.
The United States is the region of all regions of the earth for newspapers. There are more newspapers printed in the United States, than in all the rest of the world besides. We do not mean a greater number of copies of the same title, but a greater number of different titles; insomuch, that invention is nearly exhausted to afford them new names. In England, newspapers pay a very high tax; in America, they are perfectly free, and their transport by the mails is nearly so; and this is because our government, that is to say, the people, consider newspapers one of the necessaries of a Yankee's life. In the definition of a New-England man, you should always insert that he is "a go to meeting animal, and a newspaper reading animal!" The sums which we poor prisoners paid for one English newspaper a year, would have paid the annual board of a man in the interior of our own plentiful country. I am firmly of opinion, however, that Boston has and will have reason to curse her federal newspapers. They, like, the "Courier" and "Times," of London have spread false principles, and scattered error amongst a people too violently prejudiced to read both sides of the question.