Recollections of Windsor Prison; / Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection

by of Vermont John Reynolds

After wading through seas of affliction—after losing his reason—after he had outlived the ability of his destroyers to torment him further, he went home to his mother, a fair specimen of the Warden's mercy.—His ruined form is before me—I see his vacant look—I hear his unmeaning words—my soul sickens—my nerve trembles—I can neither think nor write.

PERRY.

This man had led a very wicked life, and as the fruit of his sins, a very unpleasant disease kept frequently reminding him that the pleasures of sin are a lasting bitter.—With this complaint he was often confined to his room. At length it was conjectured that he was not so sick as he pretended, and a resolution was formed that he should go into the shop and do his work like the other prisoners. To this, however, he objected, declaring that he was sick, and not able to be in the shop. But when the king commands, he must be obeyed; and so a course of preparations was made to make Perry well and get him out to work.

In the first place, a long board was provided, with straps to fasten it on his back, by lashing the sides around his arms, and neck, and body. This being properly adjusted, a rope was fastened round under his arms, and he was drawn up by it as if under a gallows, so as to just permit his toes to touch the ground. This was done in the yard, before all the prisoners, and keepers, and spectators from without; and it was repeated every day for as much as a week. After he had hung there a suitable time, he was let down, and being unable to stand, he would fall directly to the ground. Then the keepers would throw whole buckets of water on him, drawn cold from the cistern. Often would they dash these directly in his face. After this, they would hang him up again, so that the medicine of the rope, the board, and the bucket, had a fair opportunity to exert their sanative properties. The patient lived through it, and so did St. John live through the boiling oil, but the strength of human nature is no excuse for those who delight in cruelty. The man who maliciously gives me poison is a murderer, though my constitution is proof against it; and the fact that Perry outlived this process, is no evidence that he was not sick.

I have not the least sympathy for this man on account of what he suffered from his disease. I am glad that providence has appended to the impure gratification of sensual desires, some dreadful recoil of suffering; that when the loveliness of virtue cannot charm, the deformity and wretchedness of vice may appeal. But I have copied this sketch from my memorandum, to shew how men in office can descend to what would degrade a savage. If Perry was as bad as sin itself, no one had any right to torture him. I have copied it also as a specimen of what many sick men have had to endure.

ROBBINS.

There was among the keepers a man who cherished some feelings, which accorded very illy with his christian profession. In his very countenance there was a something which indicated the peculiar quality of his soul. Resentment, jealousy, cruelty, and suspicion, like so many infernal spirits, kennelled in his eyes, and growled through his snarling voice. This human shape had,—unfortunately for her—a wife who was a weaver; and he brought some yarn into the prison to have it warped for her. Robbins was at this time the warper, and the unlucky task of warping for this lady, fell to him. He performed the duty assigned him with his usual correctness, and the warp was sent out to Mrs. ——, to be woven.

In beaming it on her loom, she broke and tangled the warp to such a degree, that she could not weave it; and then said that it was spoiled in warping. This was enough for her husband; he had long had a spite against Robbins, and now he had a fine opportunity to glut his pious vengeance. Accordingly he wrote a complaint to the Warden, covering the whole warp which his wife had spoiled, and many other crimes, which were not of any consequence alone, but which added to the great one of the warp, made it look quite black. This report, drawing an appendix of consequential et ceteras, as long as the pen with which they were written, was sent to the proper officer, and Robbins was doomed to lie fourteen days and nights in a solitary cell, and live on four ounces of bread for each twenty-four hours. What makes this treatment of a helpless prisoner the more abominable is, that Robbins was always known to do his work in the best manner possible. No comment is necessary; and I leave that gentleman's conscience tangled in that warp, till he makes restitution to abused humanity.

P. FANE.

Every line in the sketch that I am now going to transcribe from my original record, ought to be written in letters of blood. It presents a complication of crimes as foul as human wickedness can perpetrate, and a society of criminals whose breath would pollute the atmosphere of Paradise. I shall be very particular in noticing every important circumstance in this case, and in suppressing those feelings of indignation, which at this distance of time and place, kindle in my breast, when the gushing blood and dying image of the victim rise up before my mind.