[1242] The reader will be interested in his own simple account of the voyage, as contained in his report to Franklin and the other commissioners. We print it from his manuscript as a good illustration of the straightforward loyalty of the man.
Port Lewis, Feb'y 14th, 1777.
Gentlemen,—This will inform you of my safe arrival after a tolerable successful cruise, having captured 3 sail of Brigs, one snow, and one ship. The Snow is a Falmouth Packet bound from thence to Lisbon. She is mounted with 16 guns and had near 50 men on board. She engaged near an hour before she struck. I had one man killed. My first Lieut. had his left arm shot off above the elbow, and the Lieut. of Marines had a musquet ball lodged in his wrist. They had several men wounded, but none killed. I am in great hopes that both my wounded officers will do well, as there are no unfavorable symptoms at present. Three of our Prizes are arrived, and I expect the other two in to-morrow. As I am informed that there has been two American Private ships of war lately taken and carried into England, I think it would be a good opportunity to negotiate and exchange prisoners, if it could be done; but I submit to your better judgment to act as you think proper. I should be very glad to hear from you as soon as possible, and should be much obliged if you would point out some line or mode to proceed by in disposing of prisoners and prizes, as nothing will be done before I receive your answer to this. I hope you'll excuse my being more particular at present.
From, Gentlemen,
Your most obliged h'ble serv't,
Lamb't Wickes.
[1243] "This will inform you", he writes on the 12th of August, "of my present unhappy situation. The Judges of the Admiralty have received orders of the 6th inst. from the Minister at Paris, ordering them not to suffer me to take any cannon, powder, or other military stores on board, or to depart from this port on any consideration whatever, without further orders from Paris. In consequence of these orders, they came on board on Saturday to take all my cannon out and to unhang my rudder. I have prevented this for the present by refusing to let them take rudder or cannon without producing an order from the minister for so doing. As I told them, my orders corresponded with theirs in regard to continuing in port, but I had no order to deliver anything belonging to the ship to them, which I would not do without orders, and if the ministers insisted on it, made no doubt but you would give your orders accordingly, which would be readily complied with on my part when such orders were received. My powder is stopped, and they have been contented with taking my written parole not to depart until I receive their permission."
[1244] On the questions arising from the carrying of prisoners by the American cruisers into European ports, see Hale's Franklin in France, ch. xi. and xviii. On American prisoners in England, see Mag. of Amer. Hist., June, '82, p. 428; Memoirs of Andrew Sherburne, p. 81; occupants of Old Mill prison, near Plymouth, N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., 1865, pp. 74, 136, 209; occupants of Forton, and journal of Timothy Connor in Ibid., xxx. 3, 175, 343; xxxi. 18, 212, 288; xxxii, 70, 165, 280; xxiii. 36; journal of Samuel Custer, etc., Ibid., Jan., 1878; Charles Herbert's Relics of the Rev., Amer. prisoners in England (Boston, 1847), with lists of names and the edition of 1854, called The Prisoners of 1776, compiled from Herbert's Journal by R. Livesey; narratives in Moore's Diary, ii. 344, 437. In 1780 there was reprinted in London, to be sold for the benefit of the American prisoners then in England, a Poetical Epistle to George Washington, by the Rev. Charles Perry Wharton of Maryland, which had been originally printed in Annapolis in 1779. There was prefixed to it an unusual portrait of Washington, "engraved by W. Sharp from an original picture."
Perhaps the most distinguished of the Americans confined in the English prisons was Joshua Barney, and the story of his several confinements and escapes is told in A Biographical Memoir of the late Commodore Joshua Barney, from autobiographical notes and journals in the possession of his family, by Mary Barney (Boston, 1832). Cf. Lossing in Field-Book, ii. 850; Harper's Monthly, xxiv. 161; Cyclop. U. S. Hist., i. 105—Ed.