The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

“The usage we receive, if I am any judge, is very good, for we are allowed the liberty of the yard all day and an open market at the gate to buy or sell, from nine o’clock in the morning to two in the afternoon, besides we have comfortable lodgings. I have never been in the Black Hole once, for I have made it my study to behave as a prisoner ought and I am treated accordingly. Last year before this time we had the pleasing prospect of an Exchange and one hundred went, but to my inexpressible grief I see but little hope of being exchanged now till the war is at an end. Where to lay the blame I’m at a loss, tho’ I think our People might do more than they do. However, I keep up good spirits and still live in hopes as we are informed that something is doing for us tho’ very slowly.”

In a letter written a week later and addressed also to his wife in Boston, William Russell said:

“You can’t imagine the anxiety I have to hear from home, for my spirits are depressed and I grow melancholy to think in what situation you must be, with three young children to maintain. But I hope you will be carried through all your trouble and remember that there is a God that never suffers such as put their trust in Him to want.”

“May 4, 1781. Samuel Owens informed the Agent of the people’s innoculating themselves for the Small Pox, upon which the Agent and Doctor of the Royal Hospital came into the yard and searched the arms of such as had been innoculated and took the names of the others to report to the Board of Commissioners.

“May 5th. Samuel Owens, Informer, was cut down[18] last night upon which he told the Agent that Mayo and Chase were the persons and that they had threatened his life. The Agent threatened to put Mayo in irons. However, upon Mayo’s shaking hands with Owens the matter was settled.

“9th. An account from New York says that Connecticut and Massachusetts are in the greatest disorder and almost starved, that their Treasuries are exhausted and their Taxes so high that the People refuse to pay them; that George Washington has advertised his Estate for Sale. Thus far for you, ye Lying Gazette!

“Yesterday Captain Manley dressed himself with an intent to go out at the Gate behind the Doctor. Just as he got past through the Gate, the Turnkey looked him in the face, which prevented his escape. In the afternoon Joseph Adams was dressed for the same purpose, which would have been effected had not Captain Connyngham prevented. To-day a lugger’s crew was brought to Prison, forty in number, mostly Americans. Nothing more remarkable except the digging of a hole being discovered.

“May 18th. Lieutenant Joshua Barney made his escape over the gate at noon, and has not been missed yet. Mr. James Adams got over the paling into the little yard in order to escape but making too great a noise, was discovered by the guard and was obliged to get back.

“19th. A tailor brought a suit of clothes to the prison for Lieutenant Barney by which means his escape was discovered and we were mustered. The Agent says he saw him at 12 o’clock this day, and has ordered us to be locked in the yard all day, dinner time excepted. The way we concealed his escape was when we were counted into the prison we put a young boy out through the window and he was counted twice. So much for one of our Mill Prison capers!”

This Lieutenant Joshua Barney, after whom one of the torpedo craft of the modern American navy is named, made a brilliant sea record, both as an officer of the naval service and as a fighting privateersman. His escape from Mill Prison was perhaps the most picturesque incident of his career. Although the story of his flight came back to William Russell and his comrades only as a scanty report that he had made way to sea, it is known from other sources that after leaving the prison Lieutenant Barney found refuge in the home of a venerable clergyman of Plymouth who sympathized with the American cause. There he was so fortunate as to find two friends from New Jersey, Colonel William Richardson, and Doctor Hindman, who had been captured as passengers in a merchant vessel and were seeking an opportunity to return home. They had bought a fishing smack in which they proposed sailing to France as the first stage of their voyage.