“To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty: the petition of sundry of the subjects of the United States of America, showeth, that your petitioners were at several respective periods, in the year of our Lord 1777, committed to Old Mill Prison, in the County of Devonshire, for the suspected crime of high treason; your petitioners are unable to be exactly positive as to the particular style or wording of the crime represented, in whole or either of their commitments, but as their bodily health is at present much impaired, and they fear it will be more so, so that their lives may be endangered by a longer confinement in prison, they humbly request that your Majesty will be pleased to order them to be brought to trial with all possible speed, for the crime or crimes of which they may be supposed guilty. And your petitioners,” &c.
26. For some months past we have thought it presumption to try to make our escape from prison by digging out, on account of there being traitors amongst us. An innocent man has borne the scandal of this a good while, but upon being told of it by a friend, he took no rest day or night until he had found the traitors, and upon examination we discovered them to be two negroes, a man and a boy. Accordingly, they were tied up and whipped—the boy was whipped by a boy, two dozen and a half lashes, on his bare back; and we thought it the man’s prerogative who had borne the blame of being a traitor and was innocent, to lay the stripes upon the negro man. Accordingly, he gave him three dozen upon his bare back, and spared not; had the negro stayed till night he would have left his ears; but I suppose that he was suspicious of that, so he went and jumped over the gate and delivered himself up to the guard and told his story. The negro boy was sent for so now they are both separated from us in another yard, and it is well for them that they are so.
27. A man came out of the Black-hole, his time being up, and Mr. Boardman and Deal, who have been only seventeen days on half allowance in the prison hospital, were sent into this yard. They are the only persons who have broke out and been taken, who have not suffered forty days on half allowance in the Black-hole.
28. Last evening being somewhat dark, two young men had a mind to try to make their escape; one of whom cut his hammock and blanket into strips and tied them together; got over the wall at the end of the prison into the yard, and was there caught and sent to the Black-hole. Today all the negroes were taken out of this prison, and put into a separate building, called the itchy yard.
29. To-day is Wednesday, which is our pay day, and each man received sixpence; and as we have received it regularly for some weeks past, we are told that we are to have it weekly; so in future, I shall only mention when we do not have it.
30. There is a number sick now, more than has been since we came to prison, except in time of small-pox. There are three or four in the prison hospital who are very sick with fever, and several more in this prison who are very ill. For a few weeks past, the agent has indulged us with the liberty of pens, ink and paper, so that we have an opportunity for writing and cyphering.
May 1. To-day the Tarbay, a ship of seventy-four guns, as she lay at her moorings, accidentally took fire, and we are told that her upper works are burned to a coal, and being old, she is not worth repairing; she has been but a few days out of dock.
3. We have a newspaper, from which we learn that an American privateer, commanded by Captain John Paul Jones, from Portsmouth, went into Whitehaven, sent her boat on shore, and spiked up the cannon, and set fire to a ship, and had it not been for a man that deserted the boat and alarmed the town, the boat’s crew would have set fire to all the shipping in the harbor. They then set off and went to Scotland, where they went on shore and plundered Lord Selkirk’s house of £5000 worth of plate, and took several cattle. To-day a large ship arrived in the Sound, which we took to be an East Indiaman, but have since heard that she is a transport from New York.
3. Sunday. To-day we received two letters from the prisoners in Portsmouth. They inform us that there are one hundred and eighty prisoners there. They also inform us that Captain Weeks, in a privateer of sixteen guns, bound from France to America, foundered upon the Banks of Newfoundland, and all were lost but one.
4. To-day, Captain Lee, taken in a merchantman belonging to Manchester, came to see us. He informed us of Captain Tracy’s arrival, and that he had taken an East Indiaman; but we do not hear of any homeward bound East Indiamen missing.