We had been in this cold and dreary mansion twenty-one months, and the above items were all the assistance we had received from Beasley, the only person in this foreign land of our enemies to whom we could look for any assistance, or from whom we had any right to expect it.
Our ears had been constantly assailed with the groans of the sick and the dying; pestilence and disease had been our constant companions; our minds had become almost distracted betwixt the grief for our departed friends and fellow-prisoners and the hunger and want of our own body. From such a long series of incessant sufferings, it is natural to suppose that the bodies were emaciated and the mind debilitated; and much of the sameness that may appear in this narrative is owing to a uniform state of misery, which will not admit of a variety in the description.
Capt. Shortland had got information on the second of November, 1815, that the prisoners had counterfeited three shilling pieces, and passed them to the market people, for their country produce, and shortly after he detected two men attempting to pass bad money; he had them apprehended immediately, and sent to the cachot.
Nothing worthy of note occurred till the twentieth, when two men lately arrived were discovered to be the same who had entered the British service the winter before. After having received many insults, and much hard usage, on board the war ships, they had got tired of their situations, and claimed their citizenship and got themselves delivered up and sent to prison again, which they considered the least of the two evils.
Their conduct on board the ships, was no doubt as disgraceful as the act they committed to bring them there; they shifted from ship to ship, till the one wherein they claimed their citizenship was ignorant of the manner they had come into the service. The prisoners being highly enraged at such conduct, made strict inquiry into the matter, and found the facts as above mentioned.—After holding consultations, many were for putting them to immediate death, others were for flogging them as severely as they could bear, and every man for giving them some condign punishment; but at last it was unanimously concluded to put upon them a mark, which would be a lasting stigma, and an example for others. They seized and took the traitors into prison, and fastened them to a table, so that they could not resist, and then, with needles and India ink, pricked U. S. on one cheek, and T. on the other; which is United States Traitor. After we let them go, they were taken immediately to the hospital, and their faces blistered on both sides, to endeavor to extract the ink, but this only made it brighter and sink deeper in. The doctors reported the traitors to be in a very dangerous state, and that their lives were despaired of. If this had been the case, it must only proceed from the application they had made use of, for no harm could arise from marking.
The next day, Capt Shortland being offended at the treatment of his friends had received, sent and had three men taken, whom he suspected were concerned in the affair, and put them into the cachot, where they were examined not long after by the King’s solicitor, and there ordered to remain till the next Exeter assizes, then and there to be tried by the laws of this country. On the twenty-fifth arrived five hundred suits of clothes, which were distributed among those who had last arrived.
The weather being very severe, and great quantities of snow falling, the men were obliged to keep within doors. On the same day arrived a regiment of regular troops, who themselves had been prisoners in France for many years during the late war between that nation and England.—They were much disgusted with the treatment we received here, and exclaimed against the authors of it, whoever they might be, and declared they had not received such treatment in France.
At this time, the government not being so strict in their charge the military, and the keepers not so strict in putting them in execution, and these new guards being very friendly, gave us a fine opportunity to escape over the walls, and many made their escape in dark stormy nights. This continued for some time, till one man was taken on the wall, in the very act; then it was stopped, and strict orders given.
On the twenty-sixth a draft of prisoners arrived, among whom were the crew of the privateer Neuf-Chattel of New York, lately captured, and two navy officers captured on the lakes. On the twenty-eighth these officers received their parole, and proceeded on to Ashburton, where all the paroled officers were stationed.
Nantucket Neutrality.