The prisoners' memoirs, or, Dartmoor prison

by C. Andrews

We received the account of the United States ship Wasp sinking the Reindeer and Avon. The particulars seemed too galling to their feelings to publish. After reading the account in the London paper, I composed a dirge, and put it up on the front of the prison, in full sight of all the soldier-officers and guards, as a tribute of respect to departed worthies of His Majesty’s navy.

Almost every draft of prisoners brought intelligence of new victories of the Americans by sea, and every British paper was filled with complaints of American privateers destroying British property in their own waters, and in sight of their cities. The prisoners, being animated with the success of the arms of their country, could not forbear expressing their joy in some pleasant feat. The following anecdote has something of the features of the attack of Don Quixotte on the wind-mill. The prisoners, the night after the news of the Wasp, took a jacket at twelve at night, lowered it down towards the ground along the rope of the prison; the soldiers saw it, and concluded it must be a man sliding down the rope to make his escape; the alarm was given, and Capt. Shortland and all the soldier-officers at the head of the picket, entered, and hailed the man on the rope, but no answer; they then drew themselves up in martial array, and every man sat his teeth and screwed his courage up to the sticking place, ready for battle; Capt. Shortland, an experienced officer, gave orders to fire, and instantly a volley of musketry was poured in upon the enemy, and down came the jacket; they rushed in upon it, and, to their astonishment, they had conquered a jacket.

The keepers who had been so insolent the day before, by wishing Mr. Madison in the prison, now showed great resentment, and gave themselves many airs upon the occasion. The soldiers discovered a candle burning in the prison, and called aloud, “put out that candle;” but the order not being instantly obeyed, they discharged a volley through the window; but a divine interposition of goodness seemed to direct the balls, for every one lodged in some part of the hammocks, which almost formed a solid column, and not a single man hurt or touched, though asleep in the hammocks. The next morning I thought the battle with the jacket and the attack on the sleeping prisoners deserved to be celebrated in some signal way, and sung like the deeds of the gallant Quixotte.

It had been remarked by the prisoners that, about the time of some reverse of the arms of the enemy, the keepers treated them with much greater severity, and seemed to wish to wreak their vengeance in retaliation on the prisoners.

On the eighteenth, orders, together with a list of names, came to discharge sixty-two of the crew of the late United States brig Frolic, who had been exchanged, and were to repair immediately to Dartmouth, thirty miles from the depot, to go on board the cartel Janey, then lying at that place with the greater part of her number, which consisted of prisoners late belonging to the United States navy and army.

Those sixty-two of the Frolic were obliged to carry the baggage themselves or leave it behind, for they were allowed no means to transport it. Twelve miles of the distance is water carriage; the other eighteen is land—this distance they had to march on foot; they received a shilling each man, and one day’s provision, at the commencement of the journey.

By letters from Plymouth, we received intelligence that another cartel, the St. Philip, was preparing to take on board part of her complement at that place, then to proceed to Dartmouth, and receive the crew of the late United States brig Argus, and her officers, and non-combatants from Ashburton. The same letters informed us that all the prisoners in England, then nearly five thousand, would shortly be removed to this prison; and, accordingly, at the latter end of this month they all were removed to this depot, and made, with some few lately from sea, five thousand and twenty. They were badly prepared to stand the inclemency of the approaching season; they were all miserably clothed, and the shoes they had received from Mr. Beasley lasted but a few weeks, and they were now quite destitute and very sickly, and the weather cold and stormy for several days together. On the third we received a letter from Mr. Beasley, informing us that his clerk, Mr. Williams, was on his way from London to this place with clothing, which he would distribute among the prisoners captured since the middle of last May, and to those captured before that date he would deliver one shirt and one pair of shoes and stockings, which should be their supply for nine months. The old prisoners stated their situation to Mr. Beasley, by letter, at the same date, and informed him that they were in need of clothing; that what they received in May was worn out, also their shoes, and that they were not supplied with sufficient bedding to make them any way comfortable through the approaching winter, especially as they were sickly, and had the small-pox in the prison, and that they should not be able to endure the hardships of their condition, though their two and a half pence a day was some relief; yet as all the workmen were turned into prison, and not permitted to go out any more on account of one man, whom we believe to be Capt. Swain, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, taking a very sudden move and leaving the whole establishment without giving notice; this left them unprovided with sufficient means to take care of themselves.

Now the surly blasts of chill November had made all surrounding nature wear the sad aspect of decay, and the barefooted prisoner stood shivering by the walls, in the pale and feeble ray of a winter sun, when Mr. Williams arrived with the clothing, as was expected, and on the third saw the crew of the Argus take their departure from this prison, to go on board the St. Philip, then lying at Dartmouth, bound for the United States. The draft of this crew consisted of one hundred, which was all that was taken from this place; she had previously taken in her complement, except this number, at Chatham. Shortly after her sailing from Dartmouth she was so unfortunate as to spring her mast, and obliged to return into port.

At this time the Phebe and the late United States frigate Essex arrived in England. The editors who published the arrival of these two ships, made no remark or observation whatever, only barely said they had arrived.

The reader will not have forgotten the circumstance of the four men, whom we mentioned were committed to close confinement during the war, on suspicion of an intention to blow up the ship. We, at this time, made application to the Board of Transport, to mitigate the punishment of these four men, late of the Surprise, and who had remained ever since in close confinement in the cachot, but our petition was not granted; the board said the sentence had passed and could not be recalled—they must suffer according to the sentence. These poor fellows had endured the three months imprisonment with a magnanimity becoming Americans. The prisoners seeing they could not get them relieved, agreed to allow them a halfpenny a month out of every man’s pay, which was cheerfully done by every man. They supplied them with such articles as the board would allow them to have.