Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail / Including a Narrative of the Voyage and Capture of the Schooner Pearl

by Daniel Drayton

Finally, it was agreed that verdicts should be taken against Sayres in the seventy-four transportation cases, he to have the advantage of carrying the points of law before the Circuit Court, and the remaining larceny indictments against him to be discontinued.

Thus ended the first legal campaign. English was discharged altogether, without trial. Sayres had got rid of the charge of larceny. I had been found guilty on two indictments for stealing, upon which Judge Crawford sentenced me to twenty years imprisonment in the penitentiary; while Sayres, on seventy-four indictments for assisting the escape of slaves, was sentenced to a fine on each indictment of one hundred and fifty dollars and costs, amounting altogether to seven thousand four hundred dollars. But from these judgments an appeal had been taken to the Circuit Court, and meanwhile Sayres and I remained in prison as before.

The hearing before the Circuit Court came on the 26th of November. That court consisted of Chief-Justice Cranch, an able and upright judge, but very old and infirm; and Judges Morrell and Dunlap, the latter of whom claimed to be the owner of two of the negroes found on board the Pearl.

My cases were argued for me by Messrs. Hildreth, Carlisle and Mann. The District Attorney, who was much better fitted to bawl to a jury than to argue before a court, had retained, at the expense of the United States, the assistance of Mr. Bradley, one of the ablest lawyers of the District. The argument consumed not less than three days. Many points were discussed; but that on which the cases turned was the definition of larceny. It resulted in the allowance of several of my bills of exceptions, the overturn of the law of Judge Crawford on the subject of larceny, and the establishment by the Circuit Court of the doctrine on that subject contended for by my counsel; but from this opinion Judge Dunlap dissented. The case of Sayres, for want of time, was postponed till the next term.

A new trial having been ordered in my two cases, everybody supposed that the charge of larceny would now be abandoned, as the Circuit Court had taken away the only basis on which it could possibly rest. But the zeal of the District Attorney was not yet satisfied; and, no longer trusting to his own unassisted efforts, he obtained (at the expense of the United States) the assistance of Richard Cox, Esq., an old and very unscrupulous practitioner, with whose aid he tried the cases over again in the Criminal Court. The two trials lasted about fourteen days. I was again defended by Messrs. Mann and Carlisle, and now with better success, as the juries, under the instructions which Judge Crawford found himself obliged to give, and notwithstanding the desperate efforts against me, acquitted me in both cases, almost without leaving their seats.

Finally, the District Attorney agreed to abandon the remaining larceny cases, if we would consent to verdicts in the transportation cases on the same terms with those in the case of Sayres. This was done; when Judge Crawford had the satisfaction of sentencing me to fines and costs amounting together to ten thousand and sixty dollars, and to remain in prison until that amount was paid.

There was still a further hearing before the Circuit Court on the bills of exceptions to these transportation indictments. My counsel thought they had some good legal objections; but the hearing unfortunately came on when Judge Cranch was absent from the bench, and the other two judges overruled them. By a strange construction of the laws, no criminal case, except by accident, can be carried before the Supreme Court of the United States; otherwise, the cases against us would have been taken there, including the question of the legality of slavery in the District of Columbia.

Thus, after a severe and expensive struggle, I was saved from the penitentiary; but Sayres and myself remained in the Washington jail, loaded with enormous fines, which, from our total inability to pay them, would keep us there for life, unless the President could be induced to pardon us; and it was even questioned, as I shall show presently, whether he had any such power.

The jail of the District of Columbia is under the charge of the Marshal of the District. That office, when I was first committed to prison, was filled by a Mr. Hunter; but he was sick at the time, and died soon after, when Robert Wallace was appointed. This Wallace was a Virginian, from the neighbor hood of Alexandria, son of a Doctor Wallace from whom he had inherited a large property, including many slaves. He had removed to Tennessee, and had set up cotton-planting there; but, failing in that business, had returned back with the small remnants of his property, and Polk provided for him by making him marshal. It was not long before I found that he had a great spite against me. It was in vain that I solicited from him the use of the passage. The light which came into my cell was very faint, and I could only read by sitting on the floor with my back against the grating of the cell door. But, so far from aiding me to read,—and it was the only method I had of passing my time,—Wallace made repeated and vexatious attempts to keep me from receiving newspapers. I should very soon have died on the prison allowance. The marshal is allowed by the United States thirty-three cents per day for feeding the prisoners. For this money they receive two meals; breakfast, consisting of one herring, corn-bread and a dish of molasses and water, very slightly flavored with coffee; and for dinner, corn-bread again, with half a pound of the meanest sort of salted beef, and a soup made of corn-meal stirred into the pot-liquor. This is the bill of fare day after day, all the year round; and, as at the utmost such food cannot cost more than eight or nine cents a day for each prisoner, and as the average number is fifty, the marshal must make a handsome profit. The diet has been fixed, I suppose, after the model of the slave allowances. But Congress, after providing the means of feeding the prisoners in a decent manner, ought not to allow them to be starved for the benefit of the marshal. Such was the diet to which I was confined in the first days of my imprisonment. But I soon contrived to make a friend of Jake, the old black cook of the prison, who, I could see as he came in to pour out my coffee, evinced a certain sympathy and respect for me. Through his agency I was able to purchase some more eatable food; and indeed the surgeon of the jail allowed me flour, under the name of medicine, it being impossible, as he said, for me to live on the prison diet. Wallace, soon after he came into office, finding a small sum in my possession, of about forty dollars, took it from me. He expressed a fear that I might corrupt old Jake, or somebody else,—especially as he found that I gave Jake my old newspapers,—and so escape from the prison. But he left the money in the hands of the jailer, and allowed me to draw it out, a dollar at a time. He presently turned out old Jake, and put in a slave-woman of his own as cook; but she was better disposed towards me than her master, and I found no difficulty in purchasing with my own money, and getting her to prepare such food as I wanted. I was able, too, after some six or eight weeks' sleeping on the stone floor of my cell, to obtain some improvement in that particular; and not for myself only, but for all the other prisoners also. The jailer was requested by several persons who came to see us to procure mattresses for us at their expense; and, finally, Wallace, as if out of pure shame, procured a quantity of husk mattresses for the use of the prisoners generally. Still, we had no cots, and were obliged to spread our mattresses on the floor.

The allowance of clothing made to the prisoners who were confined without any means of supporting themselves corresponded pretty well with the jail allowance of provisions. They received shirts, one at a time, made of the very meanest kind of cotton cloth, and of the very smallest dimensions; trousers of about equal quality, and shoes. It was said that the United States paid also for jackets and caps. How that was I do not know; but the prisoners never received any.