5. To-day several of us had an opportunity of writing letters to send by Captain Lee, who came to see us yesterday, as he is bound directly home.
6. This morning about eight o’clock, Mr. John Fowler, a prisoner, died in the prison hospital, with a pleurisy fever. He was only a few days sick, and in the afternoon there was a jury over him. They will not tell us the occasion of a jury’s being called, but it appears that the public were jealous that there had been bad usage. This man is the fourth that has died since I came to prison. He is the first of Captain Lee’s men that has died since they were imprisoned.
7. To-day there have been several men drunk in prison, as there often is when they can get money to buy beer; and there has been a wrangle between the old countrymen and the Americans. The Americans unanimously hang together, and endeavor to keep peace in prison, but if the former party were stronger than the latter, we should have a hell upon earth.
8. This afternoon there were three prisoners brought to prison, who were taken in a prize upon the Grand Bank, bound to America, by a large old East Indiaman, which has been made a transport. She was bound from New York to England, with a few of Burgoyne’s officers on board, wounded and exchanged. The three who came to prison tell us that they had the offer of entering the English service, yet they chose to come to prison. The prize-master’s mate entered the service; of those who came to prison, there was one Newbury man, one Casco Bay man, and one Philadelphia man.
9. To-day three large two deckers dropped down into the Sound, from Ammoors, bound to Spithead, to join the fleet that is bound to sea, for the purpose of watching the motions of the French.
10. The commissioners sailed from Portsmouth in the Trydant man-of-war, of sixty-four guns, bound for America, April 22d.
11. We have a hole now in hand, and as we have not convenient places in prison to conceal all the dirt, for many days past many of us have been employed in the smuggling way, by carrying it out in our pockets and under our great coats, and emptying it into the vaults; but this afternoon we met with a misfortune, for a hole which we had been digging for ten days past, by times, foundered.
12. This morning after we were turned out, we so contrived it that the officer should enter into conversation with the turnkey and sentry on guard, and draw their attention, and in the meantime we stopped the hole, so that it was not discovered.
13. We are resolved to be in the way of our duty, by embracing every opportunity to make our escape.
14. To-day about one o’clock, another prisoner died in the prison hospital. It is thought that he died of consumption. His name was Joseph Kensington; he was taken in the Lexington privateer, with Captain Henry Johnson. He is the fifth man that has died since we came to prison. If a man is ever so sick in prison, he has nothing allowed him by the doctor that is nourishing, but a little barley-water and milk broth; but we have reason to think that all necessary things are allowed by government, but it is left to the doctor’s option; so the sick do not have them at all.