In June 1814 three men escaped in a water tank. Others would have followed, but one of the former party had stupidly written an ironical letter of thanks to Captain Hutchison, in which he described the method of escape.
A daring escape was made from the Irresistible in broad daylight. Four Americans saw a jolly-boat made fast to the accommodation-ladder under the charge of a sentry. One of them was a big, strong Indian of the Narragansett tribe from Rhode Island. The four men dashed down, seized the sentry, disarmed him, threw him into the boat, and pulled off. They were fired at from all sides, and boats put off from all the ships to chase them, but only one man was wounded. They reached shore and struck across the fields, which were soon covered by people in chase from the farms and brickfields, who soon ran all the prisoners down except the Indian, who out-distanced the prisoners, and would have got away had he not sprained his ankle in getting over a fence, and even then, as he was sitting down, none of the country folk would approach him, until the marines came up. The chase had been closely followed with great excitement on the ship, and on the arrival of the captured men alongside, they were loudly cheered, their healths drunk, and the Indian at once dubbed ‘Baron Trenck’. Said the boys: ‘If it took 350 British seamen and marines to capture four Yankees, how many British sailors and marines would it take to catch ten thousand of us?’
Two Scotsmen Waterhouse excepted from his condemnation of their nation: Galbraith, the master-at-arms, and Barnes, the sailing-master, who was wont to reprove them for misdeeds, saying: ‘I expect better things of you as Americans, I consider you all in a different light from that of a d—d set of French monkeys.’
The British officers were clearly uneasy about their custody of the Americans, and felt it to be an ignoble business. Said they: ‘The Yankees seemed to take a pleasure in making us uneasy, and in exciting our apprehensions of their escape, and then they laugh and make themselves merry at our anxiety. In fact, they have systematized the art of tormenting.’
The Government, too, appreciated ‘the difficult task which the miserable officers of this miserable Medway fleet had to perform’. It did not wish them to be more rigorous, yet knew that more rigour was necessary. Rumours got about that in desperation the Government was about to transfer all the Americans from the prison ships to Dartmoor—the place which, it was said, had been lost by the Duchess of Devonshire at a game of hazard to the Prince of Wales, who determined to utilize it profitably by making a prison there.
The national festival on July 4 was duly celebrated on board the two prison ships Crown Prince and Nassau. An additional allowance of drink was sanctioned, but the American flag was only allowed to be flown as high as the ‘railings’. There were drums and pipes which played Yankee Doodle on the fo’c’sle: cheers were exchanged between the ships, and the toast of the day was drunk in English porter. There was, of course, much speechifying, especially on the Nassau, where one orator declaimed for half an hour, and another recited a poem, ‘The Impressment of an American Sailor Boy’, which is too long to be quoted, but which, says our author, brought tears into many eyes. All passed off quietly, and acknowledgement is made of the ‘extraordinary good behaviour of all the British officers and men on board the Crown Prince‘.
Although Commodore Osmore was unpopular with the Americans, his charming wife exercised a good influence in the ship by her amiability and appreciation of the fact that American prisoners were not all a gang of vagabonds; and gradually a better feeling developed between captors and captured.
In August 1814 the news of the transfer to Dartmoor was confirmed, and, says Waterhouse, was received with regret on the Crown Prince—the ship being ‘actually viewed with feelings of attachment’. The last scene, however, was marked by a disturbance.
Thirty prisoners had been told off to prepare for embarkation on a tender. At the appointed hour no tender appeared, and the embarkation was put off. But all hammocks had been packed, and upon application to Osmore for hammocks, the prisoners were told to shift as they could for the night, as the tender would arrive early the next morning, and it was not worth while to unpack the hammocks. Upon hearing this the prisoners resolved that if they were to be deprived of their night’s rest, nobody else should have any. So they harnessed themselves to benches, and ran about the deck, shouting and singing, and bumping the benches against everything which would make a noise, jammed down the marines’ crockery and brought into play every article which could add to the pandemonium. Osmore sent a marine down to quiet them. The marine returned, dishevelled, and disarmed. Osmore was furious. ‘I’ll be d—d if I do not fire on them!’ he roared: ‘Fire, and be d—d,’ was the response. As it was useless to attempt to quiet them, and to fire would have been criminal, the commodore retired, and did what he could to sleep amid the infernal din of bumping benches, jangling metal, shouts and songs, which lasted throughout the night.
When the tender took the men off in the morning it was to the accompaniment of a great roar of ‘Baa! Baa!’ as a parting shot.