In ship and prison

by William P. Chipman

“This is rich. Thought you’d got a fine prize, didn’t you? Planned to carry this cargo into Boston to feed your Yankee soldiers? Well, let me tell you ‘there’s many a slip between the cup and lip,’ and they’ll be a hungry lot before they ever eat of these stores. Captain Watson will see that they are sent to New York where they were designed to go. I’ve got a brother there to whom I shall write the whole story. Won’t he and his comrades laugh when they hear how we took the bread right out of the mouth of your fellows!”

I made no reply, perhaps because I was not in sympathy with his hilarity. Then he called a half dozen of his men to the deck and put the ship in their care, while he went back to the frigate to report to his commander.

Something in his report, or else the long chase I had led him, had ruffled the captain’s temper, for he made quick work in disposing of us. In fifteen minutes we were transferred to the man-of-war, and confined in her brig.

The hatch that imprisoned us shut the Martha from our view, and we thought we had seen the last of her. Some of us had, but it was my privilege to see her again some months later and to learn her remarkable history.

The frigate put a strong crew upon her, and ordered her to sail in her wake to Halifax, the nearest British port. During the following night she in some way became separated from her consort, and before she could rejoin her was captured by a Continental privateer, who took her into Boston. So, contrary to the boast of the officer into whose hands I had surrendered her, our Yankee soldiers did feed upon her stores.

Had we known this not only as we lay in the darkness of the hold of the Royal Prince, but during the more trying days that followed, I am quite sure our hearts would have been lighter. As it was, to the sufferings we had to bear was added the chagrin of the loss of the valuable vessel which had been entrusted to our care. At times I wondered what Captain Tucker would say when the tidings reached him. Would he blame us? Then I would think: “It matters little, for we shall never meet again.”

Three days of darkness, of vermin, of filth and of scanty fare made us ready to exchange our quarters in the frigate for any other—it mattered not what they were or where. We knew they could not be worse. So three days later when we heard the rattling of the chains which told the vessel had come to anchor, and our hatch was opened and we were bidden to come forth, we obeyed the summons with delight.

The bright sunshine, the fresh air, never seemed so good before, and as we entered the waiting boats, and were taken ashore—in a town which I at once recognized as Halifax—we were almost happy. Even when our captors, after our landing, conducted us up the street to the massive jail, we did not despair. There would at least be light there, even if the filth and fare were the same we had experienced on shipboard, and that would be something for the better. So with a firm tread and good courage we passed through the massive portals, where we were thrust into a room already overflowing with prisoners.

In five minutes we were ready to go back to the ship’s hold without a murmur; and I hesitate to write the reason why lest the reader may think I state an untruth. It hardly seems possible that the worst of men could be guilty of so atrocious an act. Yet I am giving here the simple fact. We had been put into a room where the smallpox was raging. Nearly one-half of the score of men there were sick with the foul disease, and yet without medical attendance of any kind.

The place reeked with filth; the air was poisoned with contagious germs; the room was too small for the number of prisoners already there; the condition of the place must have been known to the prison authorities; yet into this pest-hole I was thrust with my fifteen men. No foe could have perpetrated a more gross cruelty; no fiends in human shape could have shown a greater malignity.