Our sailors, though half starved, confined and broken down by harsh treatment, always kept up the genuine Yankee character, which is that of being grateful and tractable by kind usage, but stern, inflexible and resentful at harsh treatment. One morning as the general and the captain of the Regulus were walking as usual on the quarter deck, one of our Yankee boys passed along the galley with his kid of "burgoo." He rested it on the edge of the hatch-way, while he was adjusting the rope ladder to descend with his "swill." The thing attracted the attention of the general, who asked the man, how many of his comrades eat of that quantity for their breakfast? "Six Sir," said the man, "but it is fit food only for hogs." This answer affronted the captain, who asked the man, in an angry tone, "what part of America he came from?" "near to BUNKER HILL, Sir—if you ever heard of that place." They looked at each other and smiled, turned about and continued their walk. This is what the English call impudence. Give it what name you please, it is that something which will, one day, wrest the trident from the hands of Britannia, and place it with those who have more humanity, and more force of muscle, if not more cultivated powers of mind. There was a marine in the Regulus, who had been wounded on board the Shannon in the battle with the Chesapeake, who had a great antipathy to the Americans, and was continually casting reflections on the Americans generally. He one day got into a high dispute with one of our men, which ended in blows. This man had served on board the Constitution, when she captured the Guerriere and afterwards the Java. After the two wranglers were separated, the marine complained to his officer, that he had been abused by one of the American prisoners, and it reaching the captain's ears, he ordered the American on the quarter deck, and inquired into the cause of the quarrel. When he had heard it all, he called the American sailor a d—d coward for striking a wounded man. "I am no coward, Sir," said the high spirited Yankee; "I was captain of a gun on board the Constitution when she captured the Guerriere, and afterwards when she took the Java. Had I been a coward I should not have been there." The captain called him an insolent scoundrel, and ordered him to his hole again. What the British naval commanders call insolence, is no more than the undaunted expression of their natural and habitual independence. When a British sailor is called by his captain, in an angry tone, on to the quarter-deck, he turns pale and trembles, like a thief before a country justice; but not so the American; he, if he be innocent, speaks his mind with a firm tone and steady countenance; and if he feels himself insulted, he is not afraid to deal in sarcasm. In the instances just mentioned, Jonathan knew full well that the very name of Bunker Hill, the Guerriere, and the Java, was a deep mortification to John Bull. Actuated by this sort of feeling, the steady Romans shook the world.

From this digression, let us return, and resume our Journal. We arrived off Portsmouth the fifth of October, 1813; and were visited by the health officer, and ordered to the Mother-bank, opposite that place, where vessels ride out their quarantine. The next day the ship was fumigated, and every exertion made by the officers to put her in a condition for inspection by the health-officer. Letters were fumigated by vinegar, or nitrous acid, before they were allowed to go out of the ship. Their attention was next turned to us, miserable prisoners. We were ordered to wash, and put on clean shirts. Being informed that many of us had not a second shirt to put on, the captain took down the names of such destitute men, but never supplied them with a single rag.

The prisoners were now as anxious to go on shore, and to know the extent of their misery, as the captain of the Regulous was to get rid of us. The most of us, therefore, joined heartily in the task of cleansing the ship, and in white-washing the lower deck, or the place we occupied. Some, either through laziness or resentment, refused to do any thing about it; but the rest of us said, that it was always customary in America, when we left a house, or a room we hired, to leave it clean, and it was ever deemed disreputable to leave an apartment dirty. The officers of the ship tried to make them, and began to threaten them, but they persisted in their refusal, and every attempt to force them was fruitless. I do not myself wonder that the British officers, so used to prompt and even servile obedience of their own men, were ready to knock some of our obstinate, saucy fellows, on the head. This brings to my mind the concise but just observation of an English traveller through the United States of America. After saying that the inhabitants south of the Hudson were a mixed race of English, Irish, Scotch, Dutch, Germans and Swedes, among whom you could observe no precise national character; he adds, "but as to New-England, they are all true English; and there you see one uniform trait of national manners, habits and dispositions.—The people are hardy, industrious, humane, obliging, obstinate and brave. By kind and courteous usage, mixed with flattery, you can lead them, like so many children, almost as you please;" but, he adds, "the devil from h—l, with fire in one hand, and faggots in the other, cannot drive them." Neither Caesar, nor Tacitus ever drew a more true and concise character of the Gauls, or Germans, than this. Here is seen the transplanted Englishman, enjoying "Indian freedom," and therefore a little wilder than in his native soil of Albion; and yet it is surprising that a people, whose ancestors left England less than a century and a half ago, should be so little known to the present court and administration of Great Britain. Even the revolutionary war was not sufficient to teach John Bull, that his descendants had improved by transplantation, in all those qualities for which stuffy John most values himself. The present race of Englishmen are puffed up, and blinded by what they have been, while their descendants in America are proud of what they are, and what they know they shall be.

After the ship had been cleansed, fumigated and partially white-washed, so as to be fit for the eye and nose of the health officer, she was examined by him, and reported free from contagion! Now I conceive this line of conduct not very reputable to the parties concerned. When we arrived off Portsmouth, our ship was filthy, and I believe contagious; we miserable prisoners, were encrusted with the nastiness common to such a place, as that into which we had been inhumanly crowded. It was the duty of the health officers and the surgeon of the Regulus, to have reported her condition when she first anchored; and not to have cleaned her up, and altered her condition for inspection. In the American service the captain, surgeon and health officer would have all been cashiered for such a dereliction of honour and duty. This is the way that the British board of admiralty, the transport board, the parliament, and the people are deceived, and their nation disgraced; and this corruption, which more or less pervades the whole transport service, will enervate and debase their boasted navy. We cannot suppose that the British board of admiralty, or the transport board would justify the cruel system of starvation practised on the brave Americans who were taken in Canada, and conveyed in their floating dungeons down the river St. Lawrence to Halifax. Some of these captains of transports deserve to be hanged for their barbarity to our men; and for the eternal hatred they have occasioned towards their own government in the hearts of the surviving Americans. We hope, for the honor of that country whence we derived our laws and sacred institutions, that this Journal will be read in England.

The Regulus was then removed to the anchoring place destined for men of war; and the same night, we were taken out, and put on board the Malabar store ship, where we found one hundred and fifty of our countrymen in her hold, with no other bed to sleep on but the stone ballast. Here were two hundred and fifty men, emaciated by a system of starvation cooped up in a small space, with only an aperture of about two feet square to admit the air, and with ballast stones for our beds! Although in harbor, we were not supplied with sufficient water to quench our thirst, nor with sufficient light to see our food, or each other, nor of sufficient air to breathe; and what aggravated the whole, was the stench of the place, owing to a diarrhoea with which several were affected. Our situation was indeed deplorable. Imagine yourself, Christian reader! two hundred and fifty men crammed into a place too small to contain one hundred with comfort, stifling for want of air, pushing and crowding each other, and exerting all their little remaining strength to push forward to the grated hatch-way to respire a little fresh air. The strongest obtained their wish, while the weakest were pushed back, and sometimes trampled under foot.

Out stretch'd he lies, and as he pants for breath, Receives at every gasp new draughts of death. TASSO.

God of mercy, cried I, in my agony of distress, is this a sample of the English humanity we have heard and read so much of from our school boy years to manhood? If they be a merciful nation, they belong to that class of nations "whose tender mercies are cruelty."

Representations were repeatedly made to the captain of the Malabar, of our distressed situation, as suffering extremely by heat and stagnant air; for only two of us were allowed to come upon deck at a time; but he answered that he had given orders for our safe treatment, and safe keeping; and he was determined not to lose his ship by too much lenity. In a word, we found the fellow's heart to be as hard as the bed we slept on. Soon after, however, our situation became so dangerous and alarming, that one of the marine corps informed the captain that if he wished to preserve us alive, he must speedily give us more air. If this did not move his compassion, it alarmed his fears; and he then gave orders to remove the after hatch, and iron bars fixed in its place, in order to prevent us from forcing our way up, and throwing him into the sea, a punishment he richly deserved. This alteration rendered the condition of our "black hole," more tolerable; it was nevertheless a very loathsome dungeon;—for our poor fellows were not allowed to go upon deck to relieve the calls of nature, but were compelled to appropriate one part of our residence to this dirty purpose. This, as may be supposed, rendered our confinement doubly disgusting, as well as unwholesome.

I do not recollect the name of the captain of the Malabar, and it may be as well that I do not; I only know that he was a Scotchman. It may be considered by some as illiberal to deal in national reflections, I nevertheless cannot help remarking that I have received more ill-treatment from men of that nation than from individuals of any other; and this is the general impression of my countrymen. The poet tell us, that

"Cowards are cruel, but the brave Love mercy, and delight to save."[C]

The Scotch are brave soldiers, but we, Americans, have found them to be the most hard hearted and cruel people we have ever yet met with. Our soldiers as well as sailors make the same complaint, insomuch, that, "cruel as a Scotchman," has become a proverb in the United States.—The Scotch officers have been remarked for treating our officers, when in their power, with insolence, and expressions of contempt; more so than the English. It is said that a Scotch officer, who superintends the horrid whippings so common in British camps, is commonly observed to be more hard hearted than an English one. It is certain that they are generally preferred as negro-drivers in the West-India islands. It has been uniformly remarked that those Scotchmen who are settled on the Canada frontiers are remarkable for their bitterness towards our men in captivity.

We speak here of the vagrant Scotch, the fortune-hunters of the Caledonian tribe; at the same time we respect her philosophers and literary men, who appear to us to compose the first rank of writers. Without mentioning their Ossian, Thompson and Burns, we may enumerate their prose writers, such as Hume, and the present association of truly learned and acute men, who write the Edinburgh Review. A Scotchman may be allowed to show pride at the mention of this celebrated work. As it regards America, this northern constellation of talent, shines brightly in our eyes. The ancient Greeks, who once straggled about Rome and the Roman empire, were not fair specimens of the refined Athenians.

Our peasantry, settled around our own frontier, and around the shores of our lakes, have a notion that the Scotch Highlanders were, not long since, the same kind of wild, half-naked people compared with the true English, that the Choctaws, Cherokees, Pottowatomies and Kickapoo Indians are to the common inhabitants of these United States; and that less than an hundred years ago, these Scotchmen were in the habit of making the like scalping and tomahawking excursions upon the English farmer, that the North American savage makes upon the white people here. This is the general idea which our common people have of what Walter Scott calls "the border wars." Some of them will tell you that the Scotch go half naked in their own country—wear a blanket, and kill their enemies, with a knife, just like Indians. They say their features differ from the English as much as theirs do from the Indian. In a word, they suppose the Scotch Highlanders to be a race who have been conquered by the English, who have taught them the use of fire arms, and civilized them, in a degree, so as to form them into regiments of soldiers, and this imperfect idea of the half savage Sawney will not soon be corrected; and we must say that the general conduct of this harsh and self-interested race towards our prisoners, will not expedite the period of correct ideas relative to the comparative condition of the Scotch and English. The Americans have imbibed no prejudice against the Irish, having found them a brave, generous, jovial set of fellows, full of fun, and full of good, kind feelings; the antipodes of Scotchmen, who, as it regards these qualities, are cold, rough and barren; like the land that gave them birth.

We moved from Portsmouth to the Nore or Noah, for I know not the meaning of the word, or how to spell it. The place so called is the mouth of the river Thames, which runs through the capital of the British nation. We were three days on our passage. Here we were transferred to several tenders in order to be transported to Chatham. We soon entered the river Medway, which rises in Sussex, and passes by Tunbridge, Maidstone and Rochester, in Kent; and is then divided into two branches, called the east and west passage. The chief entrance is the west; and is defended by a considerable fort, called Sheerness. In this river lay a number of Russian men of war, detained here probably by way of pledge for the fidelity of the Emperor. What gives most celebrity to this river is Chatham, a naval station, where the English build and lay up their first rate men of war. It is but about thirty miles from London; or the distance of Newport, Rhode Island, from the town of Providence. We passed up to where the prison ships lay, after dark. The prospect appeared very pleasant, as the prison ships appeared to us illuminated. As we were all upon deck, we enjoyed the sight as we passed, and the commander of the tender appeared to partake of our pleasure. We were ordered on board the Crown Prince prison ship; and as our names were called over, we were marched along the deck between two rows of emaciated Frenchmen, who had drawn themselves up to review us. We then passed on to that part of the ship which was occupied by the Americans, who testified their curiosity at knowing all about us; and sticking to their national characteristic, put more questions to us in ten minutes, than we could well answer in as many hours. We passed the evening and the first part of the night in mutual communications; and we went to rest with more pleasure than for many a night before.

Our prison ship was moored in what they called Gillingham reach. We would here remark, that the river, and Thames, and Medway make, like all other rivers near to their outlets, many turnings or bendings; some forming a more obtuse, and some a more acute angle with their banks. This course of the river compels a vessel to stretch along in one direction, and then to stretch along in a very different direction. What the English call reaching, we in America call stretching. Each of these different courses of the river they call "reaches." They have their long reach and their short reach, and a number of reaches, under local, or less obvious names. Some are named after some of their own pirates, which is here and there designated by a gibbet; a singular object, be sure, to greet the eye of a stranger on entering the grand watery avenue of the capital of the British empire. But there is no room for disputing concerning our tastes. The reach where our prison was moored was about three miles below Chatham; and is named from the village of Gillingham. Now whether reach or stretch be the most proper term for an effort to sail against the wind, is left to be settled by those reverend monopolizers of all the arts and sciences, the London Reviewers; who, by the way, and we mention it pro bono publico, would very much increase their stock of knowledge and usefulness, if they would depute a few missionaries, for their own reverend body, to pass and repass the Atlantic in a British transport, containing in its black hole an hundred or two of Yankee prisoners of war: We do wish that the London Quarterly Reviewers particularly would take a trip in the Malabar; it would, if they should be so fortunate as to survive the voyage, make them better judges of the character of the English nation, and of the American nation, and of that nearly lost tribe, the Caledonian nation.

There were thirteen prison ships beside our own, all ships of the line, and one hospital ship, moored near each other. They were filled, principally, with Frenchmen, Danes and Italians. We found on our arrival twelve hundred Americans, chiefly men who had been impressed on board British men of war, and who had given themselves up, with a declaration that they would not fight against their own countrymen, and they were sent here and confined, without any distinction made between them and those who had been taken in arms. The injustice of the thing is glaring. During the night the prisoners were confined on the lower deck and on the main deck; but in the day time they were allowed the privilege of the "pound," so called, and the forecastle;—which was a comfortable arrangement compared with the black holes of the Regulus and Malabar. There were three officers on board our ship, a lieutenant, a sailing master, and a surgeon, together with sixty marines and a few invalids, or superannuated seamen to go in the boats. The whole were under the command of a commodore, while captain Hutchinson, agent for the prisoners of war, exercised a sort of control over the whole; but the butts and bounds of their jurisdiction I never knew. The commodore visited each of the prison ships every month, to hear and redress complaints, and to correct abuses, and to enforce wholesome regulations. All written communications, and all intercourse by letter passed through the hands of captain Hutchinson. If the letters contained nothing of evil tendency, they were suffered to pass; but if they contained any thing which the agent deemed improper, they were detained.

We found our situation materially altered for the better. Our allowance of food was more consonant to humanity than at Halifax, much more to the villanous scheme of starvation on board the Regulus, and the still more execrable Malabar. Our allowance of food here was half a pound of beef and a gill of barley, one pound and a half of bread, for five days in the week, and one pound of cod fish, and one pound of potatoes, or one pound of smoked herring, the other two days; and porter and small beer were allowed to be sold to us.—Boats with garden vegetables visited the ship daily; so that we now lived in clover compared with our former hard fare and cruel treatment. Upon the whole, I believe that we fared as well as could be expected, all things considered; and had such fare as we could do very well with; not that we fared so well as the British prisoners fare in America. Rich as the English nation is, it cannot well afford to feed us as we feed the British prisoners; such is the difference in the two countries in point of cheap food. On thanksgiving days, and on Christmas days, and such like holy days, we, in America, used to treat these European prisoners with geese, turkies, and plumb pudding. Many of these fellows declared that they never in their lives sat down to a table to a roasted turkey, or even a roasted goose. It is a fact, that when the time approached for drafting the British prisoners in Boston harbor, to send to Halifax to exchange them for our own men, several of the patriotic Englishmen, and many Irishmen, ran away; and when taken showed as much chagrin as our men would have felt, had they attempted to desert and run home from Halifax prison, and had been seized and brought back! This is a curious fact, and worthy the attention of the British politician. An American, in England, pines to get home; while an Englishman and an Irishman longs to become an American citizen! Ye wise men of England! the far famed England! the proud island whence we originally sprang, ponder well this fact; and confess that it will finally operate a great change in our respective countries; and that your thousand ships, your vast commerce, and your immense (factitious) riches cannot alter it. This inclination, or disposition, growing up in the hearts of that class of your subjects who are more disposed to follow the bent of their natural appetites than to cultivate patriotic opinions, will one day hoist our "bits of striped bunting" over those of your now predominating flag, and you long sighted politicians, see it as well as I do. The hard fare of your sailors and soldiers, the scoundrelism of some of your officers, especially those concerned in your provision departments; but above all, your shocking cruel punishments in your navy and in your army, have lessened their attachment to their native country. England has, from the beginning, blundered most wretchedly, for want of consulting the human heart, in preference to musty parchments; and the equally useless books on the law of nations. Believe me, ye great men of England, Scotland, Ireland and Berwick upon Tweed! that one chapter from the Law of Human Nature, is worth more than all your libraries on the law of nations. Beside, gentlemen, your situation is a new one. No nation was ever so situated and circumstanced as you are, with regard to us, your descendants. The history of nations does not record its parallel. Why then have recourse to books, or maritime laws, or written precedents?—In the code of the law of nations, you stand in need of an entirely New Chapter. We Americans, we despised Americans, are accumulating, as fast as we well can, the materials for that chapter. Your government began to write this chapter in blood; and for two years past we co-operated with you in the same way. Nothing stands still within the great frame of nature. On every sublunary thing mutability is written. Nothing can arrest the destined course of republics and kingdoms.

"WESTWARD the course of empire takes its way."... Dean Berkley.

It is singular that while the Englishman and Irishman are disposed to abandon their native countries to dwell with us in this new world, the Scotchman has rarely shown that inclination. No—Sawney is loyal, and talks as big of his king and his country, as would an English country squire, surrounded by his tenants, his horses, and his dogs. It is singular that the Laplander, and the inhabitant of Iceland, are as much attached to their frightful countries, as the inhabitant of Italy, France or England; and when avarice, and the thirst for a domineering command leads the Scotchman out of his native rocks and barren hills, and treeless country, he talks of it as a second paradise, and as the ancient Egyptians longed after their onions and garlics, so these half-dressed, raw-boned-mountaineers, talk in raptures of their country, of their bag-pipes, their singed sheep's head, and their "haggiss." The only way that I can think of, (by way of preventing the hearts blood of Old England from being drained off into America,) is to people Nova Scotia and Newfoundland with Scotchmen; where they can raise a few sheep, for singing, and for haggiss; and where they can wear their Gothic habit, and be indulged in the luxury of the bag-pipe, enjoy over again their native fogs, and howling storms, and think themselves at home. Nature seems to have fixed the great articles of food in Nova Scotia to fish and potatoes; this last article is of excellent quality in that country. Then let these strangers, these transplanted Scotchmen, these hostes, these antipodes to the Americans, man the British fleet; and fill up the ranks of their armies, and mutual antipathy will prevent the dreaded coalition.

But I hasten to return from these people to my prison ship. Among other conveniences, we had a sort of a shed erected over the hatch-way, on which to air our hammocks. This was grateful to us all, especially to those whose learning had taught them the salutiferous effects of a free circulation of the vital air. It is surprising, that after what the English philosophers have written concerning the properties of the atmospheric air; after what Boyle, Mayhew, Hales and Priestly have written on this subject: and after what they have learnt from the history of the Calcutta black hole; and after what Howard has taught them concerning prisons and hospitals, it is surprising that in 1813, the commanders of national ships in the English service, should be allowed to thrust a crowd of men into those hideous black holes, situated in the bottom of their ships, far below the surface of the water. I have sometimes pleased myself with the hope that what is here written may contribute to the abolition of a practice so disgraceful to a nation; a nation which has the honor of first teaching mankind the true properties of the air; and of the philosophy of the healthy construction of prisons and hospitals; and one would suppose of healthy and convenient ships, for the prisoner, as well as for their own seamen.

Our situation, in the day time, was not unpleasant for prisoners of war. Confinement is disagreeable to all men, and very irksome to us, Yankees, who have rioted, as it were, from our infancy, in a sort of Indian freedom. Our situation was the most unpleasant during the night. It was the practice, every night at sun-set, to count the prisoners as they went down below; and then the hatch-ways were all barred down and locked, and the ladder of communication drawn up; and every other precaution that fear inspires, adopted, to prevent our escape, or our rising upon our prison keepers; for they never had half the apprehension of the French as of the Americans. They said the French were always busy in some little mechanical employment, or in gaming, or in playing the fool; but that the Americans seemed to be on the rack of invention to escape, or to elude some of the least agreeable of their regulations. In a word, they cared but little for the Frenchmen; but were in constant dread of the increasing contrivance, and persevering efforts of us Americans. They had built around the sides of the ship, and little above the surface of the water, a stage, or flooring, on which the sentries walked during the whole night, singing out, every half hour, "all's well." Beside these sentries marching around the ship, they had a floating-guard in boats, rowing around all the ships, during the live long night. Whenever these boats rowed past a sentinel, it was his duty to challenge them, and theirs to answer; and this was done to ascertain whether they were French or American boats, come to surprise, and carry by boarding, the Crown Prince! We used to laugh among ourselves at this ridiculous precaution. It must be remembered, that we were then up a small river, within thirty-two miles of London, and three thousand miles from our own country. However, "a burnt child dreads the fire," and an Englishman's fears may tell him, that what once happened, may happen again. About one hundred and fifty years ago, viz. in 1667, the Dutch sent one of their admirals up the river Medway, three miles above where we now lay, and singed the beard of John Bull. He has never entirely got over that fright, but turns pale and trembles ever since, at the sight, or name of a republican.



CHAPTER III.

Our prison ship contained a pretty well organized community. We were allowed to establish among ourselves an internal police for our own comfort and self government.—And here we adhered to the forms of our own adored constitution; for in place of making a King, Princes, Dukes, Earls, and Lords, we elected a PRESIDENT, and twelve Counsellors; who, having executive as well as legislative powers, we called Committee men. But instead of four years, they were to hold their offices but four weeks; at the end of which a new set was chosen, by the general votes of all the prisoners.

It was the duty of the President and his twelve counsellors, to make wholesome laws, and define crimes, and award punishments. We made laws and regulations respecting personal behaviour, and personal cleanliness; which last we enforced with particular care; for we had some lazy, lifeless, slack twisted, dirty fellows among us, that required attending to, like children. They were like hogs, whose delight it is to eat, sleep and wallow in the dirt, and never work.—We had, however, but very few of this low cast; and they were, in a great measure, pressed down by some chronical disorder. It was the duty of the President and the twelve committee men, or common council, to define, precisely, every act punishable by fine, whipping, or confinement in the black hole. I opposed, with all my might, this last mode of punishment, as unequal, inhuman, and disgraceful to our national character. I contended that we, who had suffered so much, and complained so loud of the black hole of the Regulus, Malabar, and other floating dungeons, should reject, from an humane principle, this horrid mode of torment. I urged, as a medical man, that the punishment of a confined black hole, was a very unequal mode of punishment; for that some men of weak lungs and debilitated habit, might die under the effects of that which another man could bear without much distress. I maintained that it was wicked, a sin against human nature, to take a well man, put him in a place that should destroy his health, and, very possibly, shorten his days, by engrafting on him some incurable disorder. Some, on the other side, urged, that as we were in the power of the British, we should not be uncivil to them; and that our rejection of the punishment of the black hole might be construed into a reflection on the English government; so we suffered it to remain in terrorem, with a strong recommendation not to have recourse to it but in very extraordinary cases. This dispute plunged me deep into the philosophy of crimes and punishments; and I am convinced, on mature reflection, that we, in America, are as much too mild in our civil punishments, as the British are too severe. May not our extreme lenity in punishing theft and murder, lead, in time, to the adoption of the bloody code of England, with their horrid custom of hanging girls and boys for petty thefts? Is it not a fact, that several convicted murderers have escaped lately with their lives, from a too tender mercy, which is cruelty? By what I have heard, I have inferred, that the Hollanders have drawn a just line between both.

We used to have our stated, as well as occasional courts. Beside a bench of judges, we had our orators, and expounders of our laws. It was amusing and interesting, to see a sailor, in his round short jacket, addressing the committee, or bench of judges, with a phiz as serious, and with lies as specious as any of our common lawyers in Connecticut.—They would argue, turn and twist, evade, retreat, back out, renew the attack, and dispute every inch of the ground, or rather the deck, with an address that astonished me. The surgeon of the ship said to me, one day, after listening to some of our native salt water pleaders, "these countrymen of yours are the most extraordinary men I ever met with. While you have such fellows as these, your country will never lose its liberty." I replied, that this turn for legislation arose from our being all taught to read and write.—"That alone, did not give them," said he, "this acuteness of understanding, and promptness of speech. It arises," said he, with great justness, "from fearless liberty."

I have already mentioned that we had Frenchmen in this prison-ship. Instead of occupying themselves with forming a constitution, and making a code of laws, and defining crimes, and adjusting punishments, and holding courts, and pleading for, and against the person arraigned, these Frenchmen had erected billiard tables, and rowletts, or wheels of fortune, not merely for their own amusement, but to allure the Americans to hazard their money, which these Frenchmen seldom failed to win.

These Frenchmen exhibited a considerable portion of ingenuity, industry and patience, in their little manufactories of bone, of straw, and of hair. They would work incessantly, to get money, by selling these trifling wares; but many of them had a much more expeditious way of acquiring cash, and that was by gaming at the billiard tables and the wheels of fortune. Their skill and address at these, apparent, games of hazard, were far superior to the Americans. They seemed calculated for gamesters; their vivacity, their readiness, and their everlasting professions of friendship, were nicely adapted to inspire confidence in the unsuspecting American Jack-Tar; who has no legerdemain about him. Most of the prisoners were in the way of earning a little money; but almost all of them were deprived of it by the French gamesters. Our people stood no chance with them; but were commonly stripped of every cent, whenever they set out seriously to play with them. How often have I seen a Frenchman capering, and singing, and grinning, in consequence of his stripping one of our sailors of all his money? while our solemn Jack-Tar was either scratching his head, or trying to whistle, or else walking slowly off, with both hands stuck in his pocket, and looking like John Bull, after concluding a treaty of peace with Louis Baboon.

I admire the French, and wish their nation to possess and enjoy peace, liberty and happiness; but I cannot say that I love these French prisoners. Beside common sailors, there are several officers of the rank of captains, lieutenants, and, I believe, midshipmen; and it is these that are the most adroit gamesters. We have all tried hard to respect them; but there is something in their conduct so much like swindling, that I hardly know what to say of them. When they knew that we had received money for the work we had been allowed to perform, they were very attentive, and complaisant, and flattering. Some had been, or pretended to have been, in America. They would come round and say, "ah! Boston fine town, very pretty—Cape Cod fine town, very fine. Town of Rhode Island superb. Bristol-ferry very pretty. General Washington tres grand homme! General Madison brave homme!" With these expressions, and broken English, they would accompany, with their monkey tricks, capering and grinning, and patting us on the shoulder, with "the Americans are brave men—fight like Frenchmen:" and by their insinuating manners, allure our men, once more, to their wheels of fortune and billiard tables; and as sure as they did, so sure did they strip them of all their money. I must either say nothing of these Frenchmen, officers and all; or else I must speak as I found them. I hope they were not a just sample of their whole nation; for these gentry would exercise every imposition, and even insinuate the thing that was not, the more easily to plunder us of our hard earned pittance of small change. Had they shown any generosity, like the British tar, I should have passed over their conduct in silence; but after they had stripped our men of every farthing, they would say to them—"Monsieur, you have won all our money, now lend us a little change to get us some coffee and sugar, and we will pay you when we shall earn more." "Ah, Mon Ami," says Monsieur, shrugging up his shoulders, "I am sorry, very sorry, indeed; it is le fortune du guerre. If you have lost your money, you must win it back again; that is the fashion in my country—we no lend; that is not the fashion." I have observed that these Frenchmen are fatalists. Good luck, or ill luck is all fate with them. So of their national misfortunes; they shrug up their shoulders, and ascribe all to the inevitable decrees of fate. This is very different from the Americans, who ascribe every thing to prudence or imprudence, strength or weakness. Our men say, that if the game was wrestling, playing at ball, or foot-ball, or firing at a mark, or rowing, or running a race, they should be on fair ground with them.—Our fellows offered to institute this game with them; that there should be a strong canvass bag, with two pieces of cord four feet long; and the contest should be, for one man to put the other in the bag, with the liberty of first tying his hands, or his feet, or both if he chose. Here would be a contest of strength and hardihood, but not of cunning or legerdemain. But the Frenchmen all united in saying, "No! No! No! It is not the fashion in our country to tie gentlemen up in sacks."

There were here some Danes, as well as Dutchmen. It is curious to observe their different looks and manners, which I can hardly believe to be owing, entirely, to the manner of bringing up. Here we see the thick skulled plodding Dane, making a wooden dish; or else some of the most ingenious making a very clumsy ship: while others submitted to the dirtiest drudgery of the hulk, for money; and there we see a Dutchman, picking to pieces tarred ropes, which, when reduced to its original form of hemp, they call oakum; or else you see him lazily stowed away in some corner, with his pipe, surrounded with smoke, and "steeping his senses in forgetfulness;" while here and there, and every where, you find a lively singing Frenchman, working in hair; or carving out of a bone, a lady, a monkey, or the central figure of the crucifixion! Among the specimens of American ingenuity, I most admired their ships, which they built from eight inches to five feet long. Some of them were said by the navy officers, to be perfect, as regarded proportion, and exact, as it regarded the miniature representation of a merchantman, sloop of war, frigate, or ship of the line. By the specimens of ingenuity of these people, of different nations, you could discover their respective ruling passions.

Had not the French proved themselves to be a very brave people, I should have doubted it, by what I observed of them on board the prison-ship. They would scold, quarrel and fight, by slapping each other's chops with the flat hand, and cry like so many girls. I have often thought that one of our Yankees, with his iron fist, could, by one blow, send monsieur into his nonentity. Perhaps such a man as Napoleon Bonaparte, could make any nation courageous; but there is some difference between courage and bravery. I have been amused, amid captivity, on observing the volatile Frenchman singing, dancing, fencing, grinning and gambling, while the American tar lifts his hardy front and weather beaten countenance, despising them all, but the dupe of them all; just about as much disposed to squander his money among girls and fiddlers, as the English sailor; but never so in love with it, as to study the arts, tricks and legerdemain to obtain it. I have, at times, wondered that the hard fisted Yankee did not revenge impositions on the skulls of some of these blue-skinned sons of the old continent. Is there not a country, where there is one series or chain of impositions, from the Pope downwards? There is no such thing in the United States. That is a country of laws; and their very sailors are all full of "rights" and "wrongs;" of "justice and injustice;" and of defining crimes, and ascertaining "the butts and bounds" of national and individual rights.

It was a pleasant circumstance, that I could now and then obtain some entertaining books. I had read most of Dean Swift's works, but had never met with his celebrated allegory of John Bull, until I found it on board this prison-ship. I read this little work with more delight than I can express. I had always heard the English nation, including kings, lords, commons, country squires, and merchants, called "John Bull," but I never before knew that the name originated from this piece of wit of Dean Swift's. Now I learnt, for the first time, that the English king, court and nation, taken collectively, were characterized under the name of John Bull; and that of France under the name of Louis Baboon; and that of the Dutch of Nick Frog; and that of Spain under Lord Strut; that the church of England was called John's mother; the parliament his WIFE; and Scotland his poor, ill-treated, raw-boned, mangy Sister Peg. While I was shaking my sides at the comical characteristical painting of the witty Dean of St. Patrick, the Frenchmen would come around me to know what the book contained, which so much tickled my fancy; they thought it was an obscene book, and wished some one to translate it to them: but all they could get out of me was the words "John Bull and Louis Baboon!"

It is now the 30th of November, a month celebrated to a proverb in England, for its gloominess. We have had a troubled sky and foggy for several weeks past. The pleasant prospect of the surrounding shores has been obscured a great portion of this month. The countenances of our companions partake of our dismal atmosphere. It has even sobered our Frenchmen; they do not sing and caper as usual; nor do they swing their arms about, and talk with strong emphasis of every trifle. The thoughts of home obtrude upon us; and we feel as the poor Jews felt on the banks of the Euphrates, when their task-masters and prison-keepers insisted upon their singing a song. We all hung up our fiddles, as the Jews did their harps, and sat about, here and there, like barn-door fowls, when molting.

Our captivity on the banks of the river Medway, bordered with willows, brought to my mind the plaintive song of the children of Israel, in captivity on the banks of the river Euphrates, which psalm, among others, I used to sing with my mother and sisters, on Sunday evenings, when an innocent boy, and long before the wild notion of rambling, from a comfortable and plentiful home, came into my head. It is the 137th Psalm, Tate and Brady's version.

When we our weary limbs to rest Sat down by proud Euphrates' stream, We wept, with doleful thoughts opprest, And Salem was our mournful theme.

Our harps, that, when with joy we sung, Were wont their tuneful parts to bear, With silent strings, neglected hung, On willow trees, that wither'd there.

Meanwhile our foes, who all conspir'd To triumph in our slavish wrongs, Music and mirth of us requir'd, "Come, sing us one of Zion's songs."

How shall we tune our voice to sing? Or touch our harps with skilful hands? Shall hymns of joy to GOD, OUR KING, Be sung by slaves in foreign lands?

O, SALEM! Our once happy seat, When I of thee forgetful prove, Let then my trembling hand forget The speaking strings with art to move!

If I, to mention thee, forbear, Eternal silence seize my tongue! Or if I sing one cheerful air, Till my deliv'rance is my song.



CHAPTER IV.

I come now to a delicate subject; and shall speak accordingly, with due caution; I mean the character and conduct of Mr. Beasly, the American Agent for prisoners. He resides in the city of London, thirty-two miles from this place. There have been loud and constant complaints made of his conduct towards his countrymen, suffering confinement at three thousand miles distance from all they hold most dear and valuable; and he but half a day's journey from us. Mr. Beasly knew that there were some thousands of his countrymen imprisoned in a foreign land for no crime; but for defending, and fighting under the American flag, that emblem of national independence, and sovereignty; if he reflected at all, he must have known these countrymen of his were, in general, thinking men; men who had homes, and "fire places."[D] He knew they had, some of them, fathers and mothers, wives and children, brothers and sisters, in the United States, who lived in houses that had "fire places," and that they had, in general, been brought up in more ease and plenty than the same class in England; he knew they were a people of strong affections to their relatives, and strong attachments to their country; and he might have supposed that some of them had as good an education as himself; he must, or ought to have thought constantly that they were suffering imprisonment, deprivations and occasionally sickness in a foreign country, where he is specially commissioned, and placed to attend to their comforts, relieve, if practicable their wants, and to be the channel of communication between them and their families. The British commander, or commodore of all the prison ships in this river visited them all once a month; and paid good attention to all their wants.

When we first arrived here, we wrote in a respectful style to Mr. Beasly, as the Agent from our government for the prisoners in England. We glanced at our sufferings at Halifax; and stated our extreme sufferings on the passage to England, and until we arrived in the river Medway. We remarked that we expected that the government of the United States intended to treat her citizens in captivity in a foreign land all equally alike. We represented to him that we were, in general, destitute of clothing, and many conveniences, that a trifling sum of money would obtain; that we did not doubt the good will, and honorable intentions of our government; and that he doubtless knew of their kind intentions towards us all.—But he never returned a word of answer. We found that all those prisoners, who had been confined here at Chatham, from the commencement of the war, bore Mr. Beasly an inveterate hatred. They accuse him of an unfeeling neglect, and disregard to their pressing wants. They say he never visited them but once; and that then his conduct gave more disgust, than his visit gave pleasure. "Where there is much smoke there must be some fire." The account they gave is this—that when he came on board, he seemed fearful that they would come too near him; he therefore requested that additional sentries might be placed on the gangways, to keep the prisoners from coming aft, on the quarter deck. He then sent for one of their number, said a few words to him relative to the prisoners; but not a word of information in answer to the questions repeatedly put to him; and of which we were all very anxious to hear. He acted as if he was afraid that any questions should be put to him; so that without waiting to hear a single complaint, and without waiting to examine into any thing respecting their situation, their health, or their wants, he hastily took his departure, amidst the hooting and hisses of his countrymen, as he passed over the side of the ship.

Written representations of the neglect of this (nominal) agent for us prisoners, were made to the government of the United States, which we sent by different conveyances; but whether they ever reached the person of the Secretary of State, we never knew. Several individuals among the prisoners wrote to Mr. Beasly for information on subjects in which their comfort and happiness were concerned, but received no answer. Once, indeed, a letter was received from his clerk, in an imperious style, announcing that no notice would be taken of any letters from individuals; (which was probably correct) but those only that were written by the committee collectively. The committee accordingly wrote; but their letter was treated with the same silent neglect. This desertion of his countrymen, in their utmost need, excited an universal expression of disgust, if not resentment. Cut off from their own country, surrounded only by enemies, swindled by their neighbors, winter coming on, and no clothing proper for the approaching season, and the American agent for themselves and other prisoners, within three or four hours journey, and yet abandoned by him to the tender mercies of our declared enemies, it is no wonder that our prisoners detested, at length, the name of Beasly. We made every possible allowance for this gentleman; we said to each other, he may have no funds; he may have the will, but not the power to help us; his commission, and his directions may not extend so high as our expectations; still we could make no excuse for his not visiting us, and enquiring, and seeing for himself our real situation. He might have answered our letters; and encouraged us not to despair, but to hope for relief; he might have visited us as often as did the English Commodore, which was once in four weeks; but he should not have insulted our feelings, the only time he did visit us, and humble and mortify us in the view of the Frenchmen, who saw, and remarked that our agent considered us no more than so many hogs. The Emperor Napoleon has visited some of his hospitals in cog. has viewed the situation of the sick and wounded; examined their food, and eaten of their bread; and once threw a cup of wine in the face of a steward, because he thought it not good enough for the soldier; but—some of our agents are men of more consequence, in their own eyes, than Napoleon!

During the war it was stated to our government that six thousand two hundred and fifty-seven seamen had been pressed and forcibly detained on board British ships of war.—Events have proved the correctness of this statement; and this slavery has been a subject of merriment, and a theme for ridicule among the "federalists." They say it makes no more difference to a sailor what ship he is on board, than it does to a hog what stye he is in. Others not quite so brutal, have said—"hush! it may be so; but we must bear it; England is mistress of the Ocean; and her existence depends on this practice of impressment; her naval power must be submitted to—give us, merchants, commerce, and these Jack Tars will take care of themselves; for it is not worth while to lose a profitable trade for the sake of a few ignorant sailors, who never had any rights; and who have neither liberty, property or homes, but what we merchants give to them."

The American Seamen on board the Crown Prince, were chiefly men who had been impressed into the British Navy previous to the war; but who, on hearing of the Declaration of War against Great Britain by the people of the United States, gave themselves up as prisoners of war; but instead of being directly exchanged, the English Government thought it proper to send them on board these prison ships to be retained there during the war; evidently to prevent them from entering into our own navy. It should be remembered that they were all citizens of the United States, sailing in merchant ships; and yet the merchants, at least those of Boston, and the other New-England sea-ports, have, very generally, mocked the complaints of impressed seamen, and derided their representations, and have even denied the story of their impressment. Even the Governor of Massachusetts (Strong) has affected in his public speeches to the Legislature to represent this crying outrage, as the mere groundless clamor of a party opposed to his election? Whether groundless or not, I will venture to assert, that the names of many of the leading federalists in Massachusetts, and a few others will never be forgotten by the inhabitants of the prison ships at Chatham, at Halifax, and in the West Indies.

We are now at peace, and the tide of party has so far slackened, that we can tell the truth without the suspicion of political, or party designs. I shall relate only what I have collected from the men themselves, who were never in the way of reading our newspapers, or of hearing of the speeches of the friends of the British in Congress; or in our State Legislatures. I think I ought, however, here to premise, that my family were of that party in Massachusetts called Federal, that is, we voted for Governor Strong, and federal Senators and Representatives; our clergyman was also federal, and preached and prayed federally; and we read none but federal newspapers, and associated with none but federalists; of course we believed all that Governor Strong said, and approved all that our Senators and Representatives voted, and believed all that was printed in the Boston federal papers. The whole family, and myself with them, believed all that Colonel Timothy Pickering had written about impressment of seamen, and about the weakness, and wickedness of the President and administration; we believed them all to be under the pay and influence of Bonaparte, who we knew was the first Lieutenant of Satan. We believed all that was said about "Free trade and sailors' rights," was all stuff and nonsense, brought forward by the Republicans, whom we called Democrats and Jacobins, to gull the people out of their liberty and property, in order to surrender both to the Tyrant of France. We believed entirely that the war was "unnecessary" and "wicked," and declared with no other design but to injure England and gratify France. We believed also that the whole of the administration, and every man of the Republican party, from Jefferson and Madison, down to our —— was either fool or knave. If we did not believe that every republican was a scoundrel, we were sure and certain that every scoundrel was a republican. In some points our belief was as strong and as fixed as any in the papal dominions; for example—we maintained stiffly that Governor Strong, Lieut. Governor Phillips, H. G. Otis, and John Lowell and Francis Blake, Esqrs. were, for talents, knowledge, piety and virtue, the very first men in the United States, and ought to be at the head of the nation: or—to express it all in one word, as my sister once did, "Federalism is the politics of a GENTLEMAN, and of a LADY; but Republicanism is the low cant of the vulgar; of such men as your Tom Jeffersons, Jim Madisons, and John Adams', and Col. Monroes."

With these expanded and enlightened ideas of men and things, did I, Perigrinus Americanus, quit my father's house ease and plenty, to make a short trip in a Privateer, more for a frolic than for any thing serious, being very little concerned whether I was taken or not, provided my capture would be the means of carrying me among the people whom I had long adored for their superior bravery, magnanimity, religion, knowledge, and justice; which opinions I had imbibed from their own writers, in verse and prose. Beside the federal newspapers, I had dipped into the posthumous works of Fisher Ames, enough to inspire me with adoration of England, abhorrence of France, and a contempt for my own country; or to express all in a fewer words, I was a Federalist of the Boston stamp. These are the outlines of my preconceived opinions, which I carried with me into Melville Prison, at Halifax. I was not the only one by many, who entered that abode of misery with similar notions. How often have I wished that Governor Strong, and his principal supporters, were here with us, learning wisdom, and acquiring just notions of men, things and governments.

But to return from the Governor and Council, and other great men of Massachusetts, to the British prison ship at Chatham.—The British had been in the habit of pressing the sailors from our merchant ships, ever since the year 1755. The practice was always abhorred, and often resisted, and sometimes even unto death. We naturally inferred that, with our independence, we should preserve the persons of our citizens from violence and deep disgrace; for, to an American, a whipping is a degradation worse than death.—Since the termination of the war with England, which guaranteed our independence, the British never pretended to impress American citizens; but pretended to the right of entering our vessels, and taking from them the natives of Britain or Ireland, and this was their general rule of conduct;—they would forcibly board our vessels, and the boarding-officer, who was commonly a lieutenant, completely armed with sword, dirk, and loaded pistols, would muster the crew, and examine the persons of the sailors, as a planter examines a lot of negroes exposed for sale; and all the thin, puny, or sickly men, he allowed to be Americans—but all the stout, hearty, red cheeked, iron fisted, chestnut colored, crispy haired fellows, were declared to be British; and if such men showed their certificates of citizenship, and place of birth, they were pronounced forgeries, and the unfortunate men were dragged over the side into the boat, and forced on board his floating hell! Not a day in the year, but there occurred such a scene as this, somewhere on the seas; and to our shame be it spoken, we endured this outrage on man through the administration of Washington, Adams,[E] and Jefferson, before we declared war to revenge the villany. If an high spirited man, thus kidnap'd, refused to work, he was first deprived of victuals; and if starvation did not induce him to work, he was stripped, and tied up, and whipped like a thief!—and many a noble spirited fellow suffered this accursed punishment. If he seized the first opportunity, as he ought, to run away from his tyrants, and was taken, he was severely whipped; and for a second attempt the punishment was doubled, and for the third he was hanged, or shot.

It happened on our declaration of war, chiefly on account of this atrocious treatment of the sailors, that thousands of our countrymen had been impressed into the British navy, and more or less were found in almost every ship; most of these informed their respective captains, that being American citizens, they could not remain in the service of a nation, to aid them in killing their brethren; and in pulling down the flag of their native country. They declared firmly, that it was fighting against nature for a man to fight against his native land, the only land to which he owed a natural duty. Some noble British commanders admired their patriotic spirit, and permitted them to quit their ships, and go to prison: while other captains, of an opposite and ignoble character, refused to hear their declarations, and ordered them to return to what they called their duty; which they accompanied with threats of severe punishment if they disobeyed. But some, whose noble spirits would have honored any man, or station, adhered to their first determination, not to fight against their own brothers; or aid in pulling down the flag of their nation. These were immediately put in irons, and fed on scanty allowance of bread and water; for if any thing can bring down the high spirit of an hearty young man, it is the slow torture of hunger and thirst; when it was found that this had not the effect of debasing the American spirit, the young sufferer was brought upon deck, and stripped to his waist, and sometimes lower, and—Oh! my pen cannot write it for indignation! resentment, and a righteous revenge shakes my hand with rage, while I attempt to record the act of villany. Yes, my countrymen and my countrywomen, our noble minded young men, brought up in more ease and plenty than half the officers of a British man of war, are violently stripped, and tied fast and immoveable by a rope, to a cannon, or to the iron railing of what is called the gang-way, and when he is so fixed as to stretch the skin and muscles to the utmost, he is whipped by a long, heavy and hard knotted whip, four times more formidable and heavy than the whip allowed to be used by the carters, truck, or carmen, on their horses. With this heavy and knotted scourge, the boatswain's mate, who is generally selected for his strength, after stripping off his jacket, that he may strike the harder, lashes this young man, on his delicate skin, until his back is cut from his shoulders to his waist! Few men, of ordinary feelings of humanity, could bear to see, without great emotion, even a thief, or a robber, so severely punished. But what must be the feelings of an American, to see such a cruel operation upon the body of his countryman, of his mess-mate and companion? We will venture to say, that if a dog, or an horse, were tied fast to a post, in any street of any town in America, and lashed with such an heavy knotted whip, swung by the strong arm of a vigorous man, although their skins were covered and defended by their hair, or fur, we do not believe that the inhabitants would see it inflicted on the poor beast, without carrying the whipper before a magistrate, to answer for his cruelty. Yet what is the whipping of a beast, devoid of reason, and covered with fur, to this severe operation upon the delicate skin and flesh of one of our young men? And all, for what? For nobly maintaining and upholding the first and great principle of our nature. Yet has this heroism of our enslaved seamen been overlooked; and even derided by the federal merchant and the federal politician, and the federal member of congress, and the federal clergyman! Some of our brave fellows have been brought upon deck, every punishing day, and undergone this horrid punishment, three or four times over, until the crews of the men of war were disposed to cry out shame, upon their own officers! Some of our poor fellows could not sustain these repeated tortures, which is not to be wondered at, and have finally gone to work as soon as they recovered from their barbarous usage. Others, of firmer frames and firmer minds, have wearied out their persecutors, whose infernal dispositions they have defied, and triumphed over; such have been sent out of the ship into our prison-ships; and here they are, to tell their own story, to show to their countrymen the everlasting marks of their tormentors, the British navy officers. With what indignation, rage and horror, have I seen our brave fellows actuated, while one of these heroes of national rights, and national character, has been relating his sufferings, and showing his degrading scars, made on his body by the accursed whip of a boatswain's mate, by order of an infamous captain of the British navy! You talk of peace, friendship and cordiality with the nation from whom most of us sprang! It is well, perhaps, that the two nations should be at peace politically; but can you ever expect cordiality to subsist between our impressed and cruelly treated sailor, and a British navy officer. It is next to impossible. Our ill treated sailor, lacerated in his flesh, wounded in his honor, and debased by the slavish hand of a boatswain's mate, never can forget the barbarians; nor ever can, nor ever ought to forgive them. The God of nature has ordained that nations should be separated by a difference of language, religion, customs, and manners, for wise purposes; but where two great nations, like the English and American, have the same language, institutions and manners, he may possibly have allowed the devil to inspire one with a portion of his own infernal spirit of cruelty, in order to effect a separation, and keep apart two people, superficially resembling each other.

It may be for good and wise purposes, in the order of Providence, that there should be a partition wall between us and Britain. We have had to deplore that three thousand miles of ocean is not half enough; for avarice, fashion and folly, are continually drawing us together; and these often drown the still small voice of patriotism, whose language is, "Come out of her, O my people!" There is nothing that tends so strongly to keep us asunder, as the different dispositions of the two people. The Americans are a kind, humane, tender-hearted people, as free from cruelty as any nation upon earth; and possessing as much generosity towards an enemy they have vanquished, and who is at their mercy, as any people to be found on the records of the human kind. Their laws express it; the records of their courts prove it; the history of the war illustrates it; and I hope that all our actions declare it. We may change, and become as hard hearted and cruel as the English. It may be that we are now in the chivalrous age, or that period of our political existence, which is the generous, youthful stage of a nation's life; this may pass away, and we may sink into the cold, phlegmatic, calculating cruelty of the present Britons; and become, like them, objects of hatred to our own descendants. Whatever we may, in the course of degeneration, become, we assert it, as an incontrovertible fact, that the Britons are now, and have been for many generations past, vastly our inferiors on the score of polished humanity. On this subject, we would refer the reader to the History of England, written by eminent Englishmen and Scotchmen, and to Shakespeare's historical plays; and to the records of their courts, the annals of Newgate, and of the Tower; and to their penal code, generally; but above all, to their horrid military punishments, in their army, and in their navy; and then contrast the whole with the history of America; of her courts, and of her army, and navy punishments.

We would not indulge invective, nor lightly give vent to the language of resentment; but truth and utility compels us to speak of the English as they really are. Their whole history marks them a hard hearted, cruel race, and such we prisoners have found them. We will not have recourse to so early a period as the reign of Richard the 3d, or Harry the 8th, or his cruel daughter Mary, but we refer to the latter part of Charles 2d, a reign of mirth, frolic and unusual gaiety of heart, and not a period of austerity and gloom. The instance we here adduce, was not the furious cruelty of a mob, or of exasperated soldiery storming a town; but of courtiers, privy counsellors, and advisers of the good humored Charles the 2d.

William Carstares, confidential Secretary to King William, during the whole of his reign; afterwards Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was a sincere and zealous friend both to religious and civil liberty, and he lived in reputation and honor till Dec. 28th, 1715. This worthy man was put to the torture before the privy council, in the latter end of the reign of Charles the Second. The Rev. Joseph M'Cormick, D.D. who has written his life, and detailed an account of his fortitude and sufferings in the cause of liberty, says, "that all his objections and remonstrances being over-ruled by the majority of the privy counsel, the public executioner was called upon to perform his inhuman office. A thumb-screw had been prepared on purpose, of a peculiar construction. Upon its being applied, Mr. Carstares maintained such a command of himself, that, whilst the sweat streaming over his brow, and down his cheeks, with the agony he endured, he never betrayed the smallest inclination to depart from his first resolution. The Earl of Queensberry was so affected, that, after telling the chancellor, that he saw that the poor man would rather die than confess, he stepped out of the council, along with the duke of Hamilton, into another room, both of them being unable longer to witness the scene; whilst the inhuman Perth sat to the very last, without discovering the least symptom of compassion for the sufferer. On the contrary, when the executioner, by his express order, was turning the screw with such violence, that Mr. Carstares, in the extremity of his pain, cried out, that now he had squeezed the bones in pieces, the chancellor, in great indignation, told him, that, if he continued longer obstinate, he hoped to see every bone of his body squeezed to pieces. At last, finding all their efforts by means of this machinery fruitless, after he had continued no less than an hour and an half under this painful operation, they found it necessary to have recourse to a still more intimidating species of torture. The executioner was ordered to produce the iron boots, and apply them to his legs; but happily for Mr. Carstares, whose strength was now almost exhausted, the fellow, who was only admitted of late to this office, and a novice in his trade, after having attempted in vain to fasten them properly, was obliged to give it over; and the counsel adjourned for some weeks."

If to this shameful account we add their cruelty to the vanquished Scotch, in 1745, and of late years towards the brave Irish, together with what we have known of them in the revolutionary war, and in the present one, we can feel no pride in claiming kindred with them. They are a sluggish, cold, hard-fibred race of men, on whom soft and delicate airs of music make no agreeable impression. Loud and thundering sounds, such as the ringing of heavy bells, beating of drums, and firing of cannon, and the gothic hourra are requisite to move the phlegm that surrounds the tough heart of old John Bull.

When the Algerines captured some of our vessels, and made slaves of the crew, a very high degree of sensibility was excited. It was the theme of every newspaper and oration, and the subject of almost every conversation. The horror of Algerine slavery was considered as the ne plus ultra of human misery; but it has so happened, that we have many sailors returned again to their country, who have been enslaved at Algiers; and have been impressed and detained on board British men of war, and afterwards thrown into their prison-ships. The united opinion of these people is, the Algerine slavery is much more tolerable than the British slavery. The Algerines make the common sailors work from six to eight hours in the day; but they give them very good vegetable food, and enough of it; and lodge them in airy places; and always dispose the officers according to their rank; whereas the British seem to take a delight in confounding and mixing together, the officers with their men. As to their punishments among themselves, they will cut off a man's head; and strangle him with a bowstring, in a summary manner; but a Turk, or Algerine, would sicken at the sight of a whipping in the navy; and in the army of the Christian king of England. There is no nation upon this globe of earth that treats its soldiers and sailors with that degree of barbarity common to their camps, garrisons and men of war; for what they lack in the number of lashes on board a ship, they make up in the severity of infliction, so as to render the punishment nearly equal to the Russian knout.

If any one is curious to see British military flogging treated scientifically, I would refer him to chapter xii, vol. 2d, of Dr. R. Hamilton's Duties of a Regimental Surgeon, from page 22 to 82. The reading of it is enough to spoil an hungry man's dinner. We there read of the suppuration, and stench that follow after seven or eight hundred lashes; and that some men have complained that its offensiveness was almost equal to the whipping. We there read of the surgeon discharging a pound and a half of matter from an abscess, formed in consequence of a merciless punishment.—The reader may also be entertained with the discussion, whether it is best to wash the cats clear from the blood, (for the executioners lay on twenty-five strokes, and then another twenty-five, and so on, till the nine hundred or a thousand, ordered, are finished) or whether it is best to let the blood dry on the knots of the whip, in order to make it cut the sharper. There, too, you may learn the advantage of having the naked wretch tied fast and firm, so that he may not wring and twist about to avoid the torture, which, he says, if not attended to, may destroy the sight, by the whip cutting his eyes; or his cheeks and breasts may be cut for want of this precaution. He says, however, that in those regiments, who punish by running the gauntlet, it is almost impossible to prevent the man from being cut from the nape of the neck to his hams. You will there find a description of a neat contrivance, used at Gibraltar, which was compounded of the stocks and the pillory. The soldier's legs were held firm in two apertures of a thick plank, while his body and head were bent down to a plank placed in a perpendicular direction, to receive the man's head, and two more apertures to confine his arms. In this immoveable posture, human beings, Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotchmen, have had their flesh lacerated for more than half an hour! But the Doctor informs us, that the men did not like this new contrivance, as it checked their vociferation and injured their lungs; so it was discontinued; and they returned again to the halberts, where their hands were tied up over their heads. Some of these poor wretches have been known to gnaw the flesh of their own arms, in the agonies of torture; and many of them have died with internal impostumes.

AMERICANS! think of these barbarities, and bless the memories of those statesmen and warriors, who have separated you, as a nation, from a cruel people, who have neither bowels of compassion, nor any tenderness of feeling, for the soldier, or the sailor. They value them, and care for them on the same principle that we value a horse, and no more, merely as an animal that is useful to them. I have for some time believed that America would be the grave of the British character. Our free presses dare speak of their military whippings, without fearing the punishment inflicted on the Editor of their Political Register, as drawn by one of themselves.[F]

Those pressed men liberated from the British men of war, and sent on board this ship, the Crown Prince, that is, sent from one prison to another, are large, well made, fine looking fellows, for such they usually select as Englishmen.—Some of them were men of colour. The following anecdote does honor to the character of Sir Sidney Smith, as well as to that of our brave tars. Sir Sidney was then off Toulon. On the news reaching the crew that the UNITED STATES had declared war against England, all the Americans on board had determined not to fight against their country, or aid in striking its flag; they therefore asked permission to speak with Sir Sidney, who permitted them to come altogether on the quarter deck; they told him they were all Americans by birth, and impressed against their will into the British service; and forcibly detained; that although they had consented to do the duty of Englishmen on board his ship, they could not fight against their own country.—"Nor do I wish you should," was the answer of this gallant knight. On being reminded by one of his officers, that they were nearly all petty officers—he observed to them, that they had been promoted in consequence of their good behaviour; and that if they could, as he hoped they would, reconcile themselves to the service, he should continue to promote them, and reward their good behaviour. They thanked him; but assured him that it was against their principles, as Americans, and against a sense of duty towards their beloved country, to fight against their brethren, or to aid in pulling down the emblem of their nation's sovereignty. He promised to report the business to his superiors; and turning to one of his officers, said, "I wish all Englishmen were as strongly attached to their country, as these Americans are to theirs."

Another instance of a British commander, the opposite of this, is worth relating. I give it as the sufferer related it to us all; and as confirmed by other testimony beside his own. The man declared himself to be an American, and as such, asked for his discharge. The captain said he lied; that he was no American, but an Englishman; and that he only made this declaration to get his liberty; and he ordered him to be severely whipped; and on every punishing day, he was asked if he still persisted in calling himself an American, and in refusing to do duty? The man obstinately persisted. At length the captain became enraged to a high degree; he ordered the man to be stripped, and tied up to the gratings, and after threatening him with the severest flogging that was in his power to inflict, he asked the man if he would avoid the punishment, and do his duty? "Yes," said the noble sailor, "I will do my duty, and that is to blow up your ship the very first opportunity in my power." This was said with a stern countenance, and a corresponding voice. The captain seemed astonished, and first looking over his larboard shoulder, and then over his starboard shoulder, said to his officers, "this is a damn'd queer fellow! I do not believe he is an Englishman. I suppose he is crazy; so you may unlash him, boatswain:" and he was soon after sent out of that ship into this prison-ship. This man will carry the marks of the accursed cat to his grave!

O, ye Tories! ye Federalists, ye every thing but what you should be, who have derided the sufferings of the sailor, and mocked at his misery—had you one half of the heroic virtue that filled and sustained the brave heart of this noble sailor, you would cease to eulogize these tyrants of the ocean, or to revile your own government for drawing the sword, and running all risks to redress the wrongs of the oppressed sailor. The cruel conduct of the British ought to be trumpeted through the terraqueous globe; but we would feign cover over, if possible, the depravity of some few of our merchants and politicians, who regard a sailor in the same light as a truckman does his horse.

Several of these impressed men have declared, that in looking back on their past sufferings, on board English men of war, and comparing it with their present confinement at Chatham, they feel themselves in a Paradise. The ocean, the mirror of heaven, is as much the element of an American as an Englishman. The great Creator has given it to us, as well as to them; and we will guard its honor accordingly, by chasing cruelty from its surface, whether it shall appear in the habit of a Briton or an Algerine.



CHAPTER V.

It is now the last day of the year 1813; and we live pretty comfortably. Prisoners of war, confined in an old man-of-war hulk, must not expect to sleep on beds of down; or to fare sumptuously every day, as if we were at home with our indulgent mothers and sisters. All things taken into consideration, I believe we are nearly as well treated here, in the river Medway, as the British prisoners are in Salem or Boston; not quite so well fed with fresh meat, and a variety of vegetables, because this country does not admit of it. We nevertheless do suffer as we did at Halifax; and above all, we suffered on board the floating dungeons, the transports, and store-ship Malabar, beyond expression.

All the Frenchmen are sent out of the ship, excepting about forty officers; and these are all gamblers, ready and willing, and able to fleece us all, had we ever so much money. I wonder that the prison-ship-police has not put down this infamous practice. It is a fomenter of almost all the evil passions; of those particularly which do the least honor to the human heart. Our domestic faction have uttered a deal of nonsense about a French influence in America.—By what I have observed here, I never can believe that the French will ever have any influence to speak of, in the United States. We never agreed with them but in one point, and that was in our hatred to the English. There we united cordially; there we could fight at the same gun; and there we could mingle our blood together. The English may thank themselves for this. They, with their friends and allies, the Algerines and the Savages of our own wilderness, have made a breach in that great Christian family, whose native language was the English; which is every year growing wider and wider.

January, 1814.—We take two or three London newspapers, and through them know a little what is going forward in the world. We find by them that Joanna Southcote, and Molenaux, the black bruiser, engross the attention of the most respectable portion of John Bull's family. Not only the British officers, but the ladies wear the orange colored cockade, in honor of the Prince of Orange, because the Dutch have taken Holland. The yellow, or orange color, is all the rage; it has been even extended to the clothing of the prisoners. Our sailors say that it is because we are under the command of a yellow Admiral, or at least a yellow Commodore, which is about the same thing.

About this time there came on board of us a recruiting sergeant, to try to enlist some of our men in the service of the Prince Regent. He offered us sixteen guineas; but he met with no success. Some of them "bored" him pretty well. We had a very good will to throw the slave overboard; but as we dare not, we contented ourselves with telling him what a flogging the Yankees would give him and his platoon, when they got over to America.