Weather very cold all the month. The prisoners without shoes or clothes, obliged to keep their hammock. Fewer deaths than the month before. Yard covered with snow.
December.—Cold increasing. Prisoners in despair. Capt. Cotgrave ordered the prisoners to turn out every morning at the hour of nine, and stand in the yard till the guards counted them; this generally took more than an hour. Many of the prisoners were without stockings, and some without shoes, and many without jackets. They cut up their blankets to wrap up their feet and legs, that they might be able to endure the cold and snow while they were going through this ceremony. We complained to the captain of this practice, and told him it was too severe for the prisoners to endure; he said it was his orders, and as agent he must obey them. We reminded him of several instances that must shock the heart of every feeling man, that he himself was knowing to the day before. Several of these naked men, chilled, and benumbed with cold, and being half starved, fell down lifeless in his presence, and in presence of the guards and turnkeys. This was a cruelty which exceeded murder in any shape whatever; to expose the naked helpless prisoner to perish in the pitiless blast of this bleak mountain, was an act that made our hearts recoil with horror.
We remonstrated with the infamous author, but all our supplications and remonstrances were in vain; the wretch was inexorable; his feelings had become callous by continuing so long among the sufferings of the French prisoners. After these men fell down in the yard, they were taken up and carried to the hospital, and with some difficulty were restored to life again; they were then immediately sent back to prison, there to lie on the stone floor without bed or covering.
At this treatment I presume the reader will not so much wonder that so many died, as he will that any could live at all.
The name of Isaac Cotgrave, agent at Dartmoor, of cruel memory, will ever be engraven, in odious characters, on the mind of every American who witnessed his unparalleled cruelty.
On the 22d of this month the iron sceptre was wrested from his hand, and placed beyond his reach. A new agent, Capt. Thos. G. Shortland, at this time superseded Cotgrave. Shortland was a man whose feelings had not yet grown callous by being familiarized with human misery, and at his first arrival he was shocked at the scenes of our misery, which presented themselves in every shape before him; touched with compassion, he could not continue the cruel practice of counting over the prisoners every morning in the yard. He countermanded the order which his predecessor pretended to have been commanded to put in force. He declared to us that he would do all in his power to procure us some relief from his government; that he himself would do all he could in his situation as agent, to assist us; he very politely and kindly offered to forward to Mr. Beasley, or to the Congress of the United States, any communication or petition which might procure us any relief. He stated in feeling terms to the Board of Transport the real condition of the American prisoners. He ordered the doctors’ assistants to visit the persons daily, and to remove to the hospital all the sick who had before been refused admittance. He granted permission for two of the prisoners to attend the market each day, and purchase such little necessary articles as they were able, such as soap, potatoes, tobacco, &c.
These relaxations in the morning of his power seemed to promise a bright day; but the noon began to grow a little obscure, and, we are sorry to say, at last went down in blood, and left obscure the bright traits of the morning.
The weather was incredibly cold upon this mountain; the moor, as far as the eye could extend, was covered with frost and snow; the prison walls, by being continually damp, had become like solid ice, and the prisoners obliged to keep their hammocks, for being allowed no fire, had no other means to keep themselves warm.
The rigor of treatment seemed somewhat relaxed; for our friendly officers and Scotch guards gave us as much relief and consolation as their station would permit, and we endeavored to cultivate their friendship.
According to Capt. Shortland’s advice, and our own necessities, we again made application to Mr. Beasley. In this letter we informed him that we were fully of opinion that the United States would sanction any reasonable overtures he should make to prevent her citizens from starving or perishing for want in a foreign prison; that his being agent for the United States was sufficient power, and he had a right to pledge the credit of the United States, which was amply sufficient to procure any sum requisite for our relief. We farther stated, in the most unequivocal terms, that unless some relief was given us soon, that the prisoners had come to a unanimous and final determination to offer our services en masse to the British government, and at the same time transmit to the United States a copy of all letters from us to him, and set forth to Congress all our reasons for so doing, which would most undoubtedly cast all the blame on him.