A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts Part 3

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 G.o.d, 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 cla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sage 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, dest.i.tute 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 pa.s.sed over the side of the s.h.i.+p.

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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+p he is on board, than it does to a hog what stye he is in. Others not quite so brutal, have said--"hus.h.!.+ 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps; 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 Ma.s.sachusetts (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 a.s.sert, that the names of many of the leading federalists in Ma.s.sachusetts, and a few others will never be forgotten by the inhabitants of the prison s.h.i.+ps 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 a.s.sociated 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 America.n.u.s_, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, to the British prison s.h.i.+p at Chatham.--The British had been in the habit of pressing the sailors from our merchant s.h.i.+ps, 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 citizens.h.i.+p, and place of birth, they were p.r.o.nounced forgeries, and the unfortunate men were dragged over the side into the boat, and forced on board his floating h.e.l.l! 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 _Was.h.i.+ngton_, _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 n.o.ble 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 s.h.i.+p; 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 n.o.ble British commanders admired their patriotic spirit, and permitted them to quit their s.h.i.+ps, and go to prison: while other captains, of an opposite and ign.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 n.o.bly 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 punis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p into our prison-s.h.i.+ps; 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, friends.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d 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, inst.i.tutions 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 part.i.tion wall between us and Britain. We have had to deplore that three thousand miles of ocean is not half enough; for avarice, fas.h.i.+on 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sert 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 Princ.i.p.al 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 fort.i.tude 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 compa.s.sion 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-s.h.i.+ps. 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 compa.s.sion, 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 a.s.sured 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 punis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.ble sailor, "_I will do my duty_, and that is _to blow up your s.h.i.+p 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 d.a.m.n'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 s.h.i.+p into this prison-s.h.i.+p. 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 n.o.ble 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-s.h.i.+p Malabar, beyond expression.

All the Frenchmen are sent out of the s.h.i.+p, 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-s.h.i.+p-police has not put down this infamous practice. It is a fomenter of almost all the evil pa.s.sions; 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 c.o.c.kade, 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.

About five hundred prisoners have recently arrived in this "_reach_,"

from Halifax. There are between one hundred and fifty and two hundred of Colonel Boestler's men, who were deceived, decoyed, and captured near Beaver Dams, on the twenty-third of June, 1813. These men were princ.i.p.ally from Pennsylvania and Maryland. It is difficult to describe their wretched appearance; and as difficult to narrate their suffering on the pa.s.sage, without getting into a rage, inconsistent with the character of an impartial journalist.

To the everlasting disgrace of the British government, and of a British man of war, be it known, that these miserable victims to hardheartedness, were crowded together in the _black hole_ of a s.h.i.+p, as we were, just like sheep in a sheep-fold. They allowed but two to come upon deck at a time. They were covered with nastiness, and overrun with vermin; for these poor creatures were not allowed to wash their clothes, or themselves. O, how my soul did abhor the English, when I saw these poor soldiers! It is no wonder that people who only see and judge of the Americans by the prisoners, that they conceive us to be a horde of savages. They see us while prisoners, in the most degraded and odious light that we ever before saw or felt ourselves in. I can easily conceive how bad and scanty food, dirt, vermin, and a slow chronical disease, or low spirits, may change the temper and character of large bodies of men. I would advise all my countrymen, should it ever be their hard lot to be again in British bondage, to exert themselves to appear as clean and smart in their persons, as their situation will possibly admit. That I may not be accused of p.r.o.nouncing the English a cruel people, without proving my a.s.sertions, I will here ask my reader to have recourse to the speech of _Sir Robert Heron_, made in Parliament, in April, 1816, where he recites the treatment of the poor in the alms-houses at Lincoln. After a painful recital of the miserable state of the work-house in that city, he mentioned "that there were five cells strongly guarded with iron bolts, not for the reception, of lunatics, but for the punishment of such _poor persons_ as might fall into any transgression. In each of these were strong iron staples in the wall and floor, to which the _poor_ delinquent was _chained_. Among several instances of cruelty, the worthy Baronet mentioned that a Chelsea pensioner, _seventy years of age_, and _totally blind_, had been for a _whole fortnight chained to the floor_, because he had been drunk! That a very young girl, having contracted a certain disease, had been chained in a similar manner to the floor, lest she should contaminate others. Would it be believed, said Sir Robert to the House, that _one chain fixed round her body, had been weighed, and was found no less than twenty-eight pounds weight_!"--From what I have heard of the generous turn of the _Prince Regent_, his sympathetic heart would be moved to compa.s.sion for these two frail mortals, the one very old, the other very young.

But what are we to think of his master, the magnanimous _John Bull_? I believe a soldier feels more of the martial spirit when in uniform, than in a loose drab coat. The same feeling may extend to a judge in his robes, and to a parson in his gown. They all may feel braver, more consciencious, and pious, for this "outward and visible sign," of what the inward ought to be.

These poor soldiers were, of all men among us, the most miserable; they had suffered greatly for want of good and _sufficient food_; as six of them had to feed on that quant.i.ty which the British allowed to four of their own men. By what we could gather, the most barbarous, the most unfeeling neglect, and actual ill treatment, was experienced on board the _Nemesis_. This s.h.i.+p seems, like the Malabar, to be d.a.m.ned to everlasting reproach. I forgot to enquire whether her Captain and her Surgeon were Scotchmen.

We turn with disgust and resentment from such s.h.i.+ps as the Regulus, the Malabar, and the Nemesis, and mention with pleasure the _Poictiers_, of 74 guns. The captain and officers of this s.h.i.+p behaved to the prisoners she brought, with the same kindness and humanity, as I presume the captain, officers and crew of an American man of war would towards British prisoners. They considered our men as living, sensitive beings, feeling the inconveniences of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of the gratifications of these instinctive appet.i.tes; they seemed to consider, also, that we were rational beings; and it is possible they may have suspected that some of us might have had our rational and improvable faculty increased by education; they might, moreover, have thought we had, like them, the powers of reminescence, and the same dispositions to revenge; or they might not have thought much on the subject, but acted from their own generous and humane feelings. I wish it were in my power to record the names of the officers of the _Poictiers_. Of this s.h.i.+p we can remark, that she had long been on the American station; long enough to know the American character, and to respect it. Her officers had a n.o.ble specimen of American bravery and humanity, when the American sloop Wasp took the British sloop Frolic, and both were soon after taken by the Poictiers.

The humane, and we dare say, brave _Capt. Beresford_, has the homage of respect for his proper line of conduct towards those Americans whom the fortune of war put under his command. We drank the healths, in the best beer we could get, of the captain, officers and crew, of his Britannic Majesty's line of battle s.h.i.+p, _Poictiers_.

That we may not be thought to accuse the British of barbarity without proof, we shall give an instance of their shocking inhumanity towards the inhabitants of Canada, in the year 1759, when their army was under the command of a _Wolfe_, extracted from Knox's historical journal of the British campaign in Canada, p. 322, vol. 1st, dedicated by permission to Gen. Anchers. "Yesterday Capt. Starks brought in two prisoners, one of them a lad of fifteen years of age, the other a man of forty, who was very sullen, and who would not answer any questions.

This officer also took two male children, and, as he and his party were returning, they saw themselves closely pursued by a much superior body, some of whom were Indians, (_probably the father and mother of the young children, and other relatives, and a few humane Indians_)--he wished to be freed from the children, as, by their innocent cries and screeches, they directed the pursuers where to follow. Capt. Stark's lieutenant made many signs to them to go away and leave him, but they not understanding him, still redoubled their lamentations, and finding them hard pressed, he gave orders that the infants should be taken aside and KILLED, which was done"!!!--What is the reason this diabolical barbarity was never before condemned in print? The reason is plain--_they were the children of Frenchmen_.

This shocking deed was perpetrated by the officers of General Wolfe's army, and published by one of his captains, under the sanction of Lord Amherst!

It may be tedious to our readers, especially if they be British, but we cannot yet leave the subject of the inhuman treatment of the American prisoners of war, while on their pa.s.sage from Halifax to Chatham. The condition of the soldiers was the most deplorable. Some of these men were born in the interior, and had never seen the salt ocean; they enlisted in Boestler's regiment, and were taken by the British and Indians, somewhere between fort George and York, the capital of Upper Canada. They were pretty much stripped of their clothing, soon after they were taken, and their march to Montreal was conducted with very little regard to their feelings; but when sick, they were well attended to by the medical men of the enemy; their pa.s.sage from Quebec to Halifax, down the river St. Lawrence, was _barbarous_. They suffered for victuals, clothes, and every other conveniency. The men say that they had more instances of real kindness from the Indians, than from the British. But on their pa.s.sage across the Atlantic, their situation was horrible, as may be well supposed, when it is considered that these soldiers had never been at sea, and of course could not s.h.i.+ft, and _s.h.i.+rk_ about, as the sailors call it, as could the seamen; they were of course, sea sick; and were continually groping and tumbling about in the dark prison of a s.h.i.+p's hold. They suffered a double portion of misery compared with the sailors, to whom the rolling of the s.h.i.+p in a gale of wind, and the stench of bilge-water, were matters of no grievance; but were serious evils to these landsmen, who were constantly treading upon, or running against, and tumbling over each other. Many of them were weary of their lives; and some layed down dejected in despair, hoping never to rise again. Disheartened, and of course sick, these young men became negligent of their persons, not caring whether they ever added another day to their wretched existence; so that when they came on board the prison s.h.i.+p, they were loathsome objects of disgust. A mother could not have known her own son; nor a sister her brother, disguised and half consumed as they were, with a variety of wretchedness. They were half naked, and it was now the middle of winter, and within _thirty_ miles of London, in the _nineteenth_ century; an era famous for _bible societies_, for _missionary_ and _humane_ societies, and for all proud boastings of Christian and evangelical virtue; under the reign of a king and prince, renowned for their liberality and magnanimity towards _French_ catholics; (but not _Irish_ ones,) and towards _Ferdinand_ the bigot, his holiness the _Pope_, and the venerable inst.i.tution of the _holy Inquisition_. Alas! poor old _John Bull_! though art in thy dotage, with thy thousand s.h.i.+ps in the great salt ocean; and thy half a dozen _victorious ones_ in the Serpentine River, alias the splendid gutter, dug out in Hyde Park, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of British children six feet high! Can the world wonder that AMERICA, in her present age of chivalry, should knock over these doating old fellows, and make them the derision of the universe?