“I understand Mr. John Adams has superseded Doctor Franklin at France, to whom I am going to write if he can’t get us exchanged this Fall. If he don’t I think many in the yard will enter into the King’s service. And I should myself, was it not that (by so doing) I must sell my Country, and that which is much more dearer to me, yourself and my children, but I rely wholly on God, knowing He will deliver me in His own good time.
“I am extremely sorry to hear that Charleston is taken. Had our people beat them there the War would have been over, for that was all their dependence. They would have readily granted us our Independence for they are sick of the War. It is not too late yet if the people in America would turn out in good spirit, as they might soon drive them off the Earth.”
The foregoing letter was written in April, 1780, and Charleston was not captured by General Clinton’s army until May 12th. It was a false report, therefore, which brought grief to the heart of William Russell and his comrades, and must have been born of the fact that Clinton was preparing to make an overland march against Charleston from his base at Savannah. The history of two and a half years of the Revolution as it was conveyed to the Americans in Mill Prison in piecemeal and hearsay rumors was a singularly grotesque bundle of fiction and facts.
No sooner was the hope of exchange shattered than the industrious Americans were again absorbed in the game of playing hide-and-seek with the prison guard. On April 11th, William Russell goes on to say in his matter-of-fact fashion:
“This evening Captain Manley and six others got over the sink dill wall and went across the yard into the long prison sink and got over the wall, except Mr. Patten who seeing somebody in the garden he was to cross was afraid to go down the wall by the rope. He came back and burst into the prison by the window, frightening the Sentinel who was placed to prevent escapes. He in turn alarmed the guard, but by this time the rest had got into Plymouth, and being late at night they took shelter in Guildhall. The guard finding a rope over the wall knew that somebody had made their escape. They surrounded Plymouth, made a search and found Captain Manley, Mr. Drummond, Knight, Neagle and Pike, and put them into the Black Hole that night.”
A more cheering item of news found its way into the journal under date of June 27th:
“Somerset Militia mounted guard. Have just heard from a friend that Captain Paul Jones had taken two Frigates, one Brig and a Cutter.”
There is something fine and inspiriting in the following paragraph which speaks for itself:
“July 4, 1780. To-day being the Anniversary of American Independence, the American prisoners wore the thirteen Stars and Stripes drawn on pieces of paper on their hats with the motto, Independence, Liberty or Death. Just before one o’clock we drew up in line in the yard and gave Thirteen Cheers for the Thirteen United States of America and were answered by the French prisoners. The whole was conducted in a decent manner and the day spent in mirth.”
It is the more to be regretted that Mr. Patten and one John Adams should have chosen this day to turn traitor and enlist on board the British sixty-four gun ship Dunkirk “after abusing Captain Manley in a shameful manner.” To atone for their desertion of their flag, however, there is the shining instance of one Pike as told on July 26th: