The boiling kettles which we had,
Were wanting covers, good or bad;
The worst of rum that could be bought,
For a great price, to us was brought.
For bread and milk, and sugar, too,
We had to pay four times their due;
While cash and clothing which were sent,
Those wretched creatures did prevent.
Some time it was in dark November,
But just the day I can't remember,
Full forty of us were confin'd
In a small room both damp and blind,
Because there had been two or three,
Who were not of our company,
Who did attempt the other day,
The Tories said, to get away.
In eighteen days we were exchang'd,
And through the town allowed to range;
Of twenty-five that were ta'en,
But just nineteen reach'd home again.
Four days before December's gone,
In seventeen hundred eighty-one,
I hail'd the place where months before,
The Tories took me from the shore.
Peter St. John.