At this time (Sept. 1814) there were 3,500 American prisoners at Dartmoor, and so constant were they in their petty annoyance, almost persecution, of their guardians; so independent were they of rules and regulations; so constant with their petitions, remonstrances, and complaints; so untiring in their efforts to escape; so averse to anything like settling down and making the best of things, as did the French, that the authorities declared they would rather be in charge of 20,000 Frenchmen than of 2,000 Americans.
After the above-related attempts to escape, the prisoners were confined to Nos. 2 and 3 barracks, and put on two-thirds ration allowance to pay for damage done.
In October, 1814, eight escaped by bribing the sentries to procure them military coats and caps, and so getting off at night. Much amusement, too, was caused one evening by the jangling of the alarm bells, the hurrying of soldiers to quarters, and subsequent firing at a ‘prisoner’ escaping over the inner wall—the ‘prisoner’ being a dummy dressed up.
In November, 5,000 more prisoners came into the prison. There was much suffering this winter from the cold and scanty clothing. A petition to have fires in the barracks was refused. A man named John Taylor, a native citizen of New York City, hanged himself in No. 5 prison on the evening of December 1.
Peace, which had been signed at Ghent on December 24, 1814, was declared at Dartmoor, and occasioned general jubilation. Flags with ‘Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights’ thereon paraded with music and cheering, and Shortland politely requested that they should be withdrawn, but met with a flat refusal. Unfortunately much of unhappy moment was to happen between the date of the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent in March, 1815, and the final departure of the prisoners. Beasley was unaccountably negligent and tardy in his arrangements for the reception and disposal of the prisoners, so that although de jure they were free men, de facto they were still detained and treated as prisoners. Small-pox broke out, and it was only by the unwearying devotion and activity of Dr. Magrath, the prison surgeon, that the epidemic was checked, and that the prisoners were dissuaded from going further than giving Beasley a mock trial and burning him in effigy.
On April 20, 1815, 263 ragged and shoeless Americans quitted Dartmoor, leaving 5,193 behind. The remainder followed in a few days, marching to Plymouth, carrying a huge white flag on which was represented the goddess of Liberty, sorrowing over the tomb of the killed Americans, with the legend: ‘Columbia weeps and will remember!’ Before the prisoners left, they testified their gratitude to Dr. Magrath for his unvarying kindness to them, by an address.
‘Greenhorn,’ another American, gives little details about prison life at Dartmoor, which are interesting as supplementary to the fuller book of Andrews.
‘Greenhorn’ landed at Plymouth on January 30, 1815, after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed, but before its ratification, and was marched via Mannamead, Yelverton, and the Dursland Inn to Dartmoor.
He describes the inmates of the American ‘Rough Alleys’ as corresponding in a minor degree to the French ‘Romans’, the principal source of their poverty being a gambling game known as ‘Keno’.
He says—and it may be noted—that he found the food at Dartmoor good, and more abundant than on board ship. The American prisoners kept Sunday strictly, all buying, selling, and gambling was suspended by public opinion, and every man dressed in his cleanest and best, and spent the day quietly. He speaks of the great popularity of Dr. Magrath, although he made vaccination compulsory. Ship-model making was a chief industry. The Americans settled their differences in Anglo-Saxon fashion, the chief fighting-ground being in Bath Alley. Announcements of these and of all public meetings and entertainments were made by a well-known character, ‘Old Davis,’ in improvised rhyme. Another character was the pedlar Frank Dolphin.