Captain John Crane, 1800-1815

by Thomas Wallace Knox

The prison covers about thirty acres of ground, inclosed between double walls. In the inclosure are quarters for the guards and officers, and there are seven large prison houses for the captives. It was located in the midst of a desolate moor, and at this distance from the sea-coast in order to increase the difficulties of escape.

It is safe to say that every man who is brought here has a plan in his mind by which he hopes to escape; and some men have perhaps a dozen schemes they will try in succession as fast as one fails. It was so in my case; but I soon made up my mind that the construction of the prison, combined with the vigilance of the guards, would be likely to baffle any attempts I should make. So I resigned myself to my fate, and also to something else that I expected daily.

I had not forgotten the message left me by Captain Graham when he sailed from New York. Before coming ashore from the Reindeer I wrote a letter to the captain, telling him that Haines and I were prisoners of war, briefly detailing the circumstances of our capture, and adding that I knew nothing of our destination save that we were to be landed at Plymouth. This letter I left with Captain Woods, who promised to post it as soon as he went ashore.

Day after day passed and I received no reply to my letter, nor did I hear from it in any way. A week, two weeks, three weeks, and the situation was the same. I began to despair, not that I doubted the fidelity of Captain Graham to his promise, but because I feared my letter had gone astray and failed to reach its destination. I asked for the privilege of writing another letter, but was told that such indulgence was not permitted to the prisoners, except by permission of some high official in London, whom it was impossible for me to reach. It was against the rules for me to write a letter without the consent of some one outside the prison, and I was not permitted to send to him for that consent.

Time hung heavy on my hands. During the day we had the privileges of the prison yard; at night we were locked up in our quarters, and sentries, with loaded muskets, were at the doors to prevent our going outside the building. We had only the floor to sleep upon, unless we were ill enough to be sent to the hospital, where the beds consisted of the rudest kind of cots, with bags of straw for mattresses. Our food was barely enough to support life, and of the most common description. For those in the hospital it was a little better; but even there it was not such as would tempt the appetite.

Some of the prisoners had been there for several years, having been sent to Dartmoor long before the breaking out of the war in 1812. They were Americans who had been impressed into the British service, and refused to serve against their country. They had undergone severe punishment, some having been flogged repeatedly in the hope of subduing them, and as a last resort they had been sent to Dartmoor for incarceration.

Altogether, there were more than two thousand of this class of prisoners, and some had been ten years in captivity; then there were about four thousand who had been captured on naval vessels, privateers, and merchantmen, during the war; so that the total of the American population of the prison was little, if any, short of six thousand. We had the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that there was a considerable number of British subjects confined in American prisons; but, after all, there was very little comfort to be derived from this knowledge. We would have gladly consented to the liberation of every Briton then in American hands, provided, of course, we could have gained our freedom at the same time.

We whiled away the time by various games, by reading the few books that were allowed to us, and by telling each other of our experiences. Some of the stories were exciting in the extreme, and served to enlighten many hours that otherwise would have been very dull. Let me give some of them by way of samples.

One of my prison mates was Captain Percival, who had served with Commodore Lewis in the gunboat Flotilla at New York during the year 1813. "One day," said he, "the commodore ordered me to go out and capture the sloop Eagle, which was serving as tender to the British man-of-war Poictiers, seventy-four guns, that was cruising in those waters, and trying to blockade the port.

"I told the commodore that I would want a seventy-four gun ship at least to do it with, unless I could get the Eagle away from her big consort.