In ship and prison

by William P. Chipman

But the worst was yet to come.

“Do you know what I am going to do with you?” the jailer asked when his laughter was over. “Of course you don’t, so I will tell you. I am going to put you right back into that room tonight, and leave the passage open, and you are at liberty to go out if you wish. Only remember twelve good men are to be stationed outside with orders to pick you off as you come out of your hole like so many woodchucks,” and again he laughed as though he had perpetrated another good joke.

Nor was he yet done.

“Tomorrow,” he added, “I shall have you fill up the hole you have taken such pains to dig. It will be quite a job to put all that dirt back, but since you thrived while digging it out, you doubtless will enjoy putting it back. The additional exercise will be good for you,” and for the third time he laughed heartily.

This is where the worst came in. He kept his word to the letter. Back into the room we were marched and left to ourselves. There the opening stared silently at us. We knew it led out into the open air, but not one of us cared to make use of it; and the next morning under a guard of soldiers we were forced to fill up the tunnel we had been so long in digging.

The day after this enforced task was completed the overseer came to our room. He looked us over quizzically, and then remarked:

“You look tired, gentlemen, and hardly as though you were in a good condition for a long journey, and yet I am compelled to ask you to take one. The governor seems to think you are going to be more of a burden here than he cares to have on his hands, so he has decided to send you down to Halifax. At sunrise tomorrow you will start, and I wish you a pleasant journey, a safe arrival, and a long stay in the stoutest jail we have in all the colonies,” and with mock politeness he bowed himself out of our presence.

The sun was just peeping above the horizon the next morning when we were taken down to the river and put on board an open boat, already manned with an officer and ten men. The jailer himself had accompanied us, and his directions to the lieutenant in whose care he placed us were brief but to the point:

“Here are the prisoners, sir; and the governor says you are to deliver them alive or dead to the governor at Halifax, and take a receipt for them. It matters little the condition they are in—the point is to deliver them, so you will know what to do if they attempt to make you any trouble,” and the grin we had so often seen was again upon his face.

Then the ropes were cast off, the sail was hoisted, and the voyage begun—a voyage destined to have an outcome very different from what anyone in the boat, or even the watching official on the shore, expected.