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.