In the morning the tender came along side, and they all went on board of her. When they had all got in, and pushed off from the ship's side, and while Osmore was superintending their departure, they all cried out, baa! baa! baa! until they got out of hearing. The next day he betrayed a disposition to punish, in some way, those prisoners that remained; but it was remarked to him, that it was utterly impossible for any of them to stop the riot, or to keep their disturbers quiet, and that they, themselves, were equally incommoded with him and his family, he therefore prudently dropped the design. Although many of us disapproved of this behavior of the men, none of us could help laughing at the noise, and its ludicrous effects. It is a fact, that the officers and marines of the Crown Prince prison ship, were more afraid of the American prisoners, than they were of them. This last frolic absolutely cowed them. One of the officers said to me, next day, "Your countrymen do not seem to be a bloody minded set of men, like the Portuguese and Spaniards; but they have the most, d—d provoking impudence I ever saw, in any men; if they did not accompany it all with peals of laughter, and in the spirit of fun, I should put them down as a set of hell-hounds." I told him that I considered the last night's riot, not in the light of a mutiny, or a serious attempt to wound or scratch any man, but as a high frolic, without any real malice, and was an evidence of that boisterous liberty in which they had been bred up, and arising also from their high notions of right and wrong. To which the worthy Scotchman replied, "I hate a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and a Portuguese; but I never can hate an American; and yet the three former behave infinitely better; and give us far less trouble than your saucy fellows." Had British prisoners behaved in this manner, in the prison ships in the harbor of Boston, or Salem, would our officers have borne it with more patience?
As there were but few prisoners now remaining, and ample room to run and jump about for exercise, our men evidently recruited; and being in good spirits, the rose of health soon bloomed again on their manly cheeks. The soldiers, made prisoners in Canada, evidently gained strength, and acquired activity. If we compare their miserable, emaciated looks, on their arrival at Melville Prison, from their wretched voyage down the St. Lawrence, with their present appearance, the difference is striking. The wretched appearance of these new made soldiers, reflects no credit on the British. The savages of the forest never starve their prisoners. The war department of the United States having ordered these men a portion of their pay, they appropriated it chiefly to purchase comfortable clothing, which has been productive of great good, and has probably saved the lives of some of them; others squandered away their money in dissipation and gambling.
A becoming degree of tranquillity prevailed on board this prison ship, during my residence in it. On the 15th of September, we were all sent on board the Bahama prison ship, which lay farther up the reach. Here we found about three hundred of our countrymen, who received us with kindness, and many marks of satisfaction. I could, at once, perceive that their situation had been less pleasant than ours, in the Crown Prince. Little attention had been paid to cleanliness, and gambling had been carried to as great excess as their means would admit of. They seemed to lack either the power, or the resolution of adhering to and carrying into effect, good and wholesome regulations. I never saw a set of more ragged, dirty men in my life; and yet they were disposed to sell their last rag to get money to game with.—Their misfortune was, they had too few men of sense and respectability among them. They had no good committee men; not enough to bear down the current of vice and folly. We dread the contagion of bad example. Some of our men soon resorted to their detestable gambling tables; and pursued their old vices with astonishing avidity. We seriously expostulated with our companions, on their returning to the pernicious practice of gambling, after they had had the virtue of refraining on board the Crown Prince; and our advice induced nearly all of them to renounce the destructive practice. I had read, but never saw convincing evidence before, of gaming being a passion, that rages in proportion to the degrees of misery, until it becomes a species of insanity.
We, new comers, introduced certain measures that had a tendency to harmonize our sailors and soldiers. The disorders on board the Bahama arise, principally, from having on board a number of these two classes of men. Our sailors view a soldier as belonging to an order of men below them; and it must be confessed that our first crop of recruits, that were huddled together soon after the declaration of war, in some measure justified this notion. They were, many of them, idle, intemperate men, void of character and good constitutions. The high flying federal clergy, among other nonsense, told their flocks that the war would demoralize the people; whereas it had the contrary effect, as it regarded the towns an hundred miles from the sea coast. It absolutely picked all the rags, dirt, and vice, from our towns and villages, and transported them into Canada, where they were either captured, killed, or died with sickness, so that our towns and villages on the Atlantic, were cleared of idlers and drunkards, and experienced the benefit of their removal. The second crop of recruits, in 1814, were of a different cast. The high bounty, and the love of country, induced the embargoed sailor to turn soldier; to these were added young mechanics, and the sons of farmers. These were men of good habits, and of calculation. They looked forward to their bounty of land, with a determination of settling on their farms at the close of the war. These were moral men, and they raised the character of the soldier, and of their country. These were the men who conquered at Chippewa, Bridgewater, Erie, and Plattsburg. Of such men was composed that potent army of well disciplined militia, who reposed within twenty miles of the sea shores of New-England, during 1814 and 1815—especially of Massachusetts and Connecticut; and who, had the British attempted a landing, would have met them, with the bayonet, at the water's edge, and crimsoned its tide.
Our captivated sailors knew nothing of this fine army; they only knew the first recruits; and it is no wonder they viewed them as their inferiors, as they really were. Even the officers were, generally speaking, much inferior to those who closed the war. The American sailor appears to be a careless, unthinking, swearing fellow; but he is generally much better than he appears. He is generally marked with honor, generosity, and honesty. A ship's crew soon assimilates, and they are all brother tars, embarked together in the same bottom, and in the same pursuit of interest, curiosity or fame; while the rigid discipline of an army does not admit of this association and assimilation. A sailor, therefore, greets a sailor, as his brother; but has not yet learned to greet a soldier as his brother; nor has the American soldier ever felt the fraternal attachment to the sailor. It should be the policy of our rulers, and military commanders, to assimilate the American soldier and sailor; and there is little doubt but that they will amalgamate in time. In France, the soldier looks down upon the sailor; in England, and in America, the sailor looks down on the soldier. We must learn them to march arm in arm.
Confinement, dirtiness, and deprivations, have an evil operation on the mind. I have observed some who had a little refinement of manners, at the commencement of their captivity, and regarded the situation and feelings of others near them, with complacency, but have lost it all, and sunk into a state of misanthropy. We, Americans, exercise too little ceremony at best, but some of our prisoners lost all deference and respect for their countrymen, and became mere hogs, the stronger pushing the weaker aside, to get the most swill.
"Jove fix'd it certain, that the very day
Made man a slave, took half his worth away."——Homer.
All our industrious men were well behaved; and all our idle men were hoggish. Some of our countrymen worked very neatly in bone, out of which material they built ships,[M] and carved images, and snuff boxes, and tobacco boxes, and watch cases. Some covered boxes, in a very neat manner, with straw. The men thus employed, formed a strong contrast to those who did nothing; or who followed up gambling. Our ship afforded striking instances of the pernicious effects of idleness; and of the beneficial effects of industry. We, on board the Crown Prince, instructed the boys; but in this ship, there has been no attention paid to them; and they are, upon the whole, as vicious in their conduct, and as profane in their language, as any boys I ever saw. Frenchmen are bad companions for American boys. They can teach them more than they ever thought of in their own country.
In January last, three hundred and sixty American prisoners were sent on board this ship. Great mortality prevailed among the Danish prisoners, prior to the arrival of our countrymen, on board the Bahama. The Danes occupied her main deck, while we occupied the lower one.—When our poor fellows were tumbled from out of one ship into this, they had not sufficient clothes to cover their shivering limbs, in this coldest month of the year. They were, indeed, objects of compassion, emaciated, pale, shuddering, low spirited, and their constitutions sadly broken down.—Their morbid systems were not strong enough to resist any impression, especially the contagion of the jail fever, under which the Danes were dying by dozens. Out of three hundred and sixty one Americans, who came last on board, eighty-four were, in the course of three months, buried in the surrounding marshes, the burying place of the prison ships. I may possibly forgive, but I never can forget the unfeeling conduct of the British, on this occasion. Why send men on board a crowded prison ship, which they knew was infected with a mortal contagion? Their government must have known the inevitable consequences of putting three hundred debilitated men on board an infected ship, where there were not enough well to attend on the sick.—If we, Americans, ever treated British prisoners in our hands, in this cruel manner, the facts have never reached my ears. Here was an opportunity for redeeming the blasted reputation of the British, for the horrors of their old Jersey prison ship, in the revolutionary war. But they supposed that our affairs were so low; and their own so glorious, that there was no room for retaliation. The surrounding marshes were already unhealthy, without adding the poison of human bodies, which were every hour put into them.—Several persons, now prisoners here, and I rank myself among that number, had a high idea of British humanity, prior to our captivity; but we have been compelled to change our opinions of the character of the people from whom we descended. The commander of the Bahama, Mr. W. is a passionate and very hot tempered man, but is, upon the whole, an humane one. We have more to praise than to blame in his conduct towards us. He is not ill disposed to the Americans, generally, and wishes for a lasting peace between the two contending nations. His mate is the reverse of all this, especially when he is overcharged with liquor.
As characteristic of some of our imprudent countrymen, I insert the following anecdote. The Bellecean, (or Bellauxcean) prison ship, lay next to us. She was filled with Norwegians, and were detained in England, while Norway adhered to a king of their own choice. The commander of her was a nettlesome, fractious, foolish old fellow, who was continually overlooking us, and hailing our commander, to inform him if any one smuggled a bottle of rum from the market boats. His Norwegians gave him no trouble; they were a peaceable, subservient people, with no fun in their constitutions, nor any jovial cast in their composition.—They were very different from the British or American sailor, who will never be baulked of his fun, if the devil stands at the door. This imprudent, meddling old commander, of the Bellauxcean, was forever informing the officer of the deck of every little pickadillo of the American prisoners; and he, of course, got the hearty ill will of all the Americans in the ship Bahama. He once saw a marine connive at the passing a couple of bottles of liquor through the lower ports, and he hailed the commander, and informed him of it; and the marine was immediately punished for it. This roused the Americans to revenge; for the British soldier, or marine, is so much of a slave, that revenge never dare enter his head. Retaliation belongs alone to the free and daring American. He alone enjoys the lex talionis, and glories in carrying it into execution.