Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

“On the evening of the 6th, a little before 7 o’clock, Mr. Holmsden, 1st clerk, came to my house and informed me there was a disposition of the prisoners to be riotous, as they had got between the railings and wall of No. 7 yard; in consequence, I walked down to the upper gate. On coming there, I was informed the prison barrack wall had been breached. I went to the yard and saw a large hole, and the military guarding it under an officer whom I since know to be Lieutenant Avelyn. On getting to the breach I observed the prisoners using an iron bar to enlarge it. I remonstrated and told them it was the prison barrack-yard, and that it would be dangerous for them to attempt to force in; the prisoners shouted and threw stones through the breach, and still continued at times to enlarge it. I then heard some one say they were breaking the wall above the cook-house in the prison barrack-yard, and nearly at the same time there was a call out that they were forcing the lower gates, while I was still in the lower barrack-yard. I immediately left the yard and Lieutenant Avelyn followed me, leaving the breach with a party and a sergeant. When I arrived at the blacksmith’s shop I saw a rush of prisoners between the iron rails under the platform: the gate was at this time forced, and the prisoners were without the gates in the market square, where they are not allowed to be. Seeing this, and having in my mind the breach in the barrack wall and the reported breach above the cook-house, bearing this in mind with the reported threats that had been constantly told me that the prisoners would liberate themselves on or before the 10th April, I ordered the alarm bell to be rung. At this time part of the west guard, which is called the piquet, had gone round to turn the prisoners out of the railway in No. 7 yard, and another part of the same piquet was in the barrack-yard; so that the force was reduced to the north guard only; Lieutenant Avelyn formed that guard and marched down into the market square. I preceded them, and about half-way down the guard formed in a line, keeping their left close to the hospital wall. At this time I should suppose there were from 4 to 500 prisoners in the market square; I was perfectly unarmed, and went down to remonstrate with them, using all persuasions in my power to make them return to their prisons, stating that the military guard was formed about them, and it was dangerous to attempt to use force. I was at this time about six paces in front of the guard, and the prisoners kept still pressing up, and pressing me on the military; they appeared to want to get round the left of the military, keeping close to the hospital wall. At this time I looked back,[44] and said, ‘For God’s sake, soldiers, keep your ground!’ bearing in mind that there was not a single soldier above these to prevent escape through the outer gates. Almost immediately, about twelve or fifteen soldiers charged down towards No. 1, towards the hospital gates, about 5 or 6 paces, and they returned into line again. I was still at this time in front and had gone forward again, urging the prisoners who had retreated when a discharge of musketry took place. While I was in that position, being to the right of the centre of the guard, and not near the hospital wall, a musket ball grazed my temple in that discharge, when I retreated into line with the soldiers; the prisoners retreated and advanced again, and about this time Major Joliffe gave the orders to fire, conceiving he had done so from seeing the Major appear at the moment. Indeed in a former conversation with General Brown, in the presence of Major Gladding, being asked if an attempt were made to resist the authority of the depôt I should order the military to fire, I told General Brown as well as the Major, that I did not think myself authorized to command the military to fire, because it was their duty to do it when they thought it necessary. I don’t recollect a suspension of the ringing the bell and then commencing again; it was a continual ringing; I ordered it in consequence of seeing that the prisoners had broken through the breach in the wall, and the other reported breach. I did not hear any orders to fire. It must be understood that I was with the prisoners, who were making a great noise, hurrahing and rioting at the time.... I was not out of the market square until all the firing had ceased. I was not in No. 7 yard until an hour after the whole was over. I recollect a man coming up the market square with a wounded man, and after being told to go away he would not, and I gave him a push; he said that I must recollect I had struck him, but I made him no answer. Taking into consideration the apparent temper and resolution of the prisoners, and my remonstrances having no effect, I do not think they could have been driven back without firing.”

Captain Shortland dated the commencement of the antipathy of the prisoners towards him from the time when he got the Transport Board to prosecute some men for tattooing others.

The evidence of Captain Shortland is remarkably meagre and unsatisfactory. According to him, every one acted on his own initiative, and he himself had little to do in the matter but make useless expostulations. He says nothing about the fastening of the inner gate being broken. The charge with bayonets took place without his orders, as did also the firing on the prisoners. But he made the astounding statement that in his opinion the military might fire on the prisoners if they saw fit, without having received orders to do so. But he believed that Major Joliffe had ordered the volleys, whereas Major Joliffe with the grenadiers did not arrive till the firing had begun and was in progress.

On 8 April, a coroner’s inquest was held at the prisons, by Joseph Whitford, coroner; the jury consisted of Dartmoor farmers, and they returned a verdict of “Justifiable homicide.” But the American representative demanded a further examination, and accordingly Mr. Larpent, an Englishman, and Charles King, an American, were appointed to investigate the matter; and their investigation was made on 26 April. When their report was sent to Mr. Adams, the Minister of the United States to the British Court, it was accompanied by a letter from Charles King, in which he states his own independent opinion.

“In considering it of much importance that the report, whatever it might be, should go forth under our joint signatures, I have forborne to press some of the points which it involves, as far as otherwise I might have done; and it therefore may not be improper in this letter to enter into some little explanation of such parts of the report. Although it does appear that a part of the prisoners were, on that evening, in such a state and under such circumstances as to have justified, in the view which the commander of the depôt could not but take it, the intervention of the military force, and even in a strict sense the first use of firearms, yet I cannot but express it as my settled opinion, that by a conduct a little more temporizing this dreadful alternative of firing upon the unarmed prisoners might have been avoided.... When the firing became general, as it afterwards appears to have done, and caught with electric rapidity from the square to the platforms, there was no plea nor shadow of excuse for it, except in the personal exasperation of the soldiers: nor for the more deliberate, and therefore more unjustifiable, firing which took place into three of the prisons ... after the prisoners had retired into them, and there was no longer any pretence of apprehension as to their escape.

“As to whether the order to fire came from Captain Shortland, I yet confess myself unable to form any satisfactory opinion, though perhaps the bias of my mind is that he did give such an order.”

I now subjoin the report signed by both Commissioners:—

“During the period which has elapsed since the arrival in this country of the account of the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, an increased degree of restlessness and impatience of confinement appears to have prevailed amongst the American prisoners at Dartmoor; which, though not exhibited in the shape of any violent excesses, has been principally indicated by threats of breaking out, if not soon released. On the fourth of the month in particular, only two days previous to the event, the subject of this inquiry, a large body of the prisoners rushed into the Market Square, from whence by the regulations of the prison they are excluded, demanding bread instead of biscuit, which had on that day been issued by the officers of the depôt. Their demands, however, having been then almost immediately complied with, they returned to their own yards, and the employment of force, on that occasion, became unnecessary.

“On the evening of the 6th, about six o’clock, it was clearly proved to us, that a breach or hole had been made in one of the prison walls, sufficient for a full-sized man to pass; and that others had been commenced in the course of the day, near the same spot, though never completed; that a number of prisoners were over the railing, erected to prevent them from communicating with the sentinels on the walls, which was, of course, forbidden by the regulations of the prison; and that, in the space between the railing and these walls, they were tearing up pieces of turf, and wantonly pelting each other in a noisy and disorderly manner. That a much more considerable number of the prisoners were collected together at that time, in one of their yards, near the place where the breach was effected; and that, although such collection of prisoners was not unusual at other times (the gambling tables being commonly kept in that part of the yard), yet when connected with the circumstances of the breach, and the time of day, which was after the horn (the signal for the prisoners to retire to their respective prisons) had ceased to sound;[45] it became a natural and just ground of alarm to those who had charge of the depôt.