P.S. David Tappin is confined in a Room where the Small Pox is and Reuben Potter has been unwell for some days past.
[Originals in possession of Captain John Coddington Kinney, Hartford, Conn.]
[No. 57.]
EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF CAPT. JAMES MORRIS, PRISONER AT FLATBUSH, L.I.[251]
"I was put on board with the other prisoners of war [at Philadelphia] and sailed down the river Delaware, and went to New York. We were 12 days on our passage. I was then put on my parole of honour and boarded with a plain Dutch family in Kings County, at the west end of Long Island. We were confined within the limits of said County.
At Flat Bush I became acquainted with a Mr Clarkson a man of science and of a large property, he owned the most extensive private Library that I had ever known in the United States, his wife had a capacious mind and she was remarkably distinguished for her piety. Mr. Clarkson made me a welcome visitor at his house and gave me access to his library. He allowed me to take as many books as I chose and carry them to my lodgings. I there lived two years and six months devoting my time to reading. I read through a course of ancient and modern history. My exercise was hand labour and walking. I tended a garden one summer upon shares and my net profits were about twelve dollars. The next summer I obtained the use of a small piece of Land and planted it with potatoes from which my net profits were 30 dollars. I was treated with great kindness by the family with which I lived. I endeavored to be always on the pleasant side with them and to be sure, not to be wanting in my attentions to my landlady. Here I learned that the little nameless civilities and attentions were worth a great deal more than they cost me. Here I was peculiarily situated to learn the human character: for the inhabitants in this county were all attached to the British Government and said the officers paroled there were all rebels, and that they would finally be hung for their rebellion, so that if any of us received any injury or met with any abuse from the inhabitants we could have no redress we must patiently bear it. The Dutch inhabitants were uncultivated yet many of them possessed strength of mind and were intelligent. They were mostly strangers to the sympathies and tender sensibilities which so much rejoiced the heart of friends with friends and promote the happiness of society. But notwithstanding I was thus secluded from my particular friends and acquaintances yet I enjoyed my share of comfort and worldly felicity. I felt no disposition to murmer and repine in my then condition. Every day afforded me its enjoyments excepting a time when I had a pretty severe attack with the ague and fever which reduced me low. The whole term of my Captivity was three years and three months lacking one day. I was exchanged on the 3rd day of Jany 1781. I was taken from Flat Bush to New York and from thence conveyed to Elizabethtown in New Jersey and set at liberty."
[Original in possession of Hon. Dwight Morris, Bridgeport, Conn.]