CHAPTER II
Had the agent informed us of the orders of his government, and made us acquainted with our destination, we should have braced our minds up to the occasion, and submitted to our hard fate like men. We should have said to each other in the language of Shakespeare—"if these things be necessities, let's meet them like necessities;" but to be deceived and duped, and cajoled into a state of great joy and exultation, and then, in an instant, precipitated into the dark and cold regions of despair, was barbarous beyond expression. As much resentment as I feel towards Miller and his subalterns, I cannot wish either of them to suffer the pangs I felt at the idea of this floating dungeon.
The late Governor Gerry, in one of his communications to the legislature of Massachusetts, when speaking of the impressment and ill usage of our seamen by the English, calls a British man-of-war "a floating Pandemonium." I never felt the force of that expression until I entered on board this floating hell.
After some difficulty and delay we got ourselves and bedding up the side of the ship; and as our names were called over, our bedding was served out to us. We informed the officer that there were but seventy blankets for an hundred men; to which he replied, that he had orders to serve out blankets in the same proportion as they served out our provisions. To understand this, the reader must know that the British have been in the habit, all the war, of giving to their prisoners a less quantity of food than to their own men. They uniformly gave to six of us the same quantity which they gave to four of their own sailors. If what they allowed to their own men was barely sufficient, what they gave to us could not be enough to satisfy the cravings of hunger; and this we all found to be the case.
The crew of the man of war sleep on the deck which is next under the gun deck, while our destination was on the deck under that. It was to the ship what the cellar is to a house. It was under water, and of course, without windows, or air holes. All the air and light came through the hatch way, a sort of trap door or cellar way. In this floating dungeon, we miserable young men spent our first night, in sleepless anguish, embittered with the apprehension of our suffering cruel death by suffocation. Here the black hole of Calcutta rose to my view in all its horrors; and the very thought stopped my respiration, and set my brain on fire. In my distress, I stamped with my feet, and beat my head against the side of the ship in the madness of despair. I measured the misery of those around me by what I myself suffered. Shut up in the dark with ninety-nine distressed young men, like so many galley slaves, or Guinea negroes, excluded from the benefit of the common air, without one ray of light or comfort, and without a single word expressive of compassion from any officer of the ship. I never was so near sinking into despair. We naturally cling to life, but now I should have welcomed death. To be confined, and even chained any where in the light of the sun, is a distressing thing, especially to very young men, but to be crowded into a dirty hole in the dark, where there was no circulation of air is beyond expression horrible. Perhaps my study of the human frame, and my knowledge of the vital property of the air, and of the philosophy of the vital functions, may have added to my distress. I remembered what I had read and learnt in the course of my education, viz: that every full grown person requires forty-eight thousand cubic inches of air in an hour, or one million, one hundred and fifty-two thousand cubic inches in the course of a day; and that if this is once received into the lungs and breathed out again, it cannot be breathed a second time, till it is mixed with the common atmospheric air. When I considered that our number amounted to an hundred, I could not drive from my mind this calculation, and the result of it nearly deprived me of my reason. The horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta have been long celebrated, because Englishmen suffered and perished in it. Now the English have more than a thousand black holes into which they unfeelingly thrust their impressed men, and their prisoners of war. Their tenders that lay in the Thames, off Tower-wharf, are so many black holes into which they thrust their own people, whom their press gangs seize in the streets of London, and crowd into them like so many live rabbits or chickens carrying in a cart to market. My reflections on these things have greatly changed my opinion of the English character in point of humanity.
After passing a wretched night, one of the petty officers came down to us, by which event we learnt that it was morning. I found myself much indisposed; my tongue was dry and coated with a furr; my head ached violently, and I felt no inclination to take any thing but cold water. A degree of calmness, however, prevailed among my fellow prisoners. They found lamentations unavailing, and complaints useless. Few of them, beside myself, had lost their appetites, and several expressed a wish for some breakfast. Preparations were soon made for this delicious repast. The first step was to divide us into messes, six in a mess. To each mess was given a wooden kid, or piggin, as our farmers call them, because it is out of such wooden vessels that they feed their pigs that are fatting for the market. At 8 o'clock one was called from each mess, by the whistle of the boatswain's mate, to attend at the galley, the nautical name for the kitchen and fire place, to receive the breakfast for the rest. But what was our disappointment to find instead of coffee, which we were allowed by our own government at Melville prison, a piggin of swill, for we farmers' sons can give no other name to the disgusting mess they brought us. This breakfast was a pint of liquid which they call Burgoo, which is a kind of oatmeal gruel, about the consistence of the swill which our farmers give their hogs, and not a whit better in its quality. It is made of oatmeal, which we Americans very generally detest. Our people consider ground oats as only fit for cattle, and it is never eaten by the human species in the United States. It is said that this oatmeal porridge was introduced to the British prisons by the Scotch influence, and we think that none but hogs and Scotchmen ought to eat it. A mess more repellant to a Yankee's stomach could not well be contrived. It is said, however, that the highlanders are very fond of it, and that the Scotch physicians extol it as a very wholesome and nutritious food, and very nicely calculated for the sedentary life of a prisoner: but by what we have heard, we are led to believe, that oatmeal is the staple commodity of Scotland, and that the highly favoured Scotch have the exclusive privilege of supplying the miserable creatures whom the fortune of war has thrown into the hands of the English, with this national dish, so delicious to Scotchmen, and so abhorrent to an American.
Excepting this pint of oatmeal porridge, we had nothing more to eat or drink until dinner time; when we were served with a pint of pea-water. Our allowance for the week, for it is difficult to calculate it by the day, was four and a half pounds of bread, two and a quarter pounds of beef or pork, one and a quarter pounds of flour, and the pea-water, which they called "soup," five days in every week. Now let any man of knowledge and observation judge, whether the portion of food here allotted to each man was sufficient to preserve him from the exquisite tortures of hunger; and perhaps there is no torture more intolerable to young men not yet arrived to their full growth. We had been guilty of no crime. We had been engaged in the service of our dear country, and deserved applause, and not torture. And be it forever remembered, that the Americans always feed their prisoners well, and treat them with humanity.
The Regulus, for that is the name of the ship we were in, is, if I mistake not, an old line of battle ship, armed en flute, that is, her lower deck was fitted up with bunks, or births, so large as to contain six men in a birth. The only passages for light or air were through the main and fore hatches, which were covered with a grating, at which stood, day and night, a sentinel. The communication between our dungeon and the upper deck was only through the main hatch way, by means of a rope ladder, that could be easily cut away at a moment's warning, should the half starved American prisoners ever conclude to rise and take the ship, which the brave British tars seemed constantly apprehensive of. You may judge of their apprehensions by their extraordinary precautions—they had a large store of muskets in their tops to be ready for their marines and crew, should we Yankees drive them from the hull to seek safety above. They had two carronades loaded with grape and canister shot on the poop, pointing forward, with a man at each; and strict orders were given not to hold any conversation with the Americans, under the penalty of the severest chastisement. However improbable the thing may appear, we discussed the matter very seriously and repeatedly among ourselves, and compared the observations we made when on deck, in our council chamber under water. It seems that the British are apprized of the daring spirit of the Americans; they watch them with as much dread as if they were so many tigers.
Just before we sailed, our old friend, Mr. Miller, came on board, and we were all called upon deck to hear his last speech, and receive his blessing. We conceited that he looked ashamed, and felt embarrassed. It is probable that the consciousness of having told us things that were not true, disconcerted him. He, however, in a milder manner and voice than usual, told us that we were going to England to be exchanged, while there were some in another ship going to England to be hanged. Beside this enviable difference in our situation, compared with those traitorous Irishmen, who had been fighting against their king and country, we were very fortunate in being the first selected to go, as we should of course, be the first to be exchanged and sent home. He told us that he thought it probable, that we should be sent home again before spring, or at farthest in the spring; he therefore exhorted us to be good boys during the passage, and behave well, and obey orders, and that would ensure us kind and humane treatment; but that if we were mutinous, or attempted to resist the authority of the officers, our treatment would be less kind, and we should lose our turn in the course of exchange, and that our comfort and happiness depended entirely on our own submissive behaviour. He every now and then gave force to his assertions, by pledging his honor, that what he said was true, and no deception.
As this was probably the last time we should have an opportunity of a personal communication with Mr. Agent Miller, we represented to him, that there were several of the prisoners destitute of comfortable clothing; that the clothes of some were not even decent to cover those parts of the body that even our savage Indians conceal, and he promised to accommodate them: but we never heard any more of him or the clothing. However it may be accounted for, we saw this man part from us with regret. It seemed to be losing an old acquaintance, while we were going we knew not where—to meet we knew not what.
Previous to our sailing we had applied to Mr. Mitchell, the American agent, for a supply of clothing; but from some cause or other, he did not relieve the wants of our suffering companions. Mr. Mitchell may be a very good man; but every good man is not fit for every station. We had rather see old age, or decrepitude, pensioned by the government we support, than employed in stations that require high health and activity. Disease and infirmity may check, or impede the benevolent views of our government, and cast an odium on the officers of administration. After all, we may find fault where we ought to praise. It is possible that we may not have made due allowance for Mr. Miller, the British agent, and we may sometimes have denounced him in terms of bitterness, when he did not deserve it. His general conduct, however, we could not mistake.
On the third of September, 1813, we sailed from Halifax in company with the Melpomene, a man of war transport, armed en flute. On board this ship were a number of Irishmen, who had enlisted in our regiments, and were captured in Upper Canada, fighting under the colours of the United States of America! or, in the language of the English government, found fighting against their king and country. The condition of these Irishmen was truly pitiable. Unable to live in their own oppressed country, they, in imitation of our forefathers, left their native land to enjoy the liberty, and the fruits of their labor in another. They abandoned Ireland, where they were oppressed, and chose this country, where they were protected and kindly treated. Many of them had married in America, and considered it their home. Here they chose to live, and here they wished to die. As few of them had trades, they got their living as laborers, or as seamen. The embargoes and the war threw them out of business, and many of them enlisted in our army; that is, in the army of the country which they had chosen, and had a right to choose. Their consciences forbade them not to fight for us against the English and their allies the Indians. In their eyes, and in the eye of our laws, no imputation of crime could be attached to their conduct; yet were these men seized from among other prisoners, taken in battle, and sent together in one ship, as traitors and rebels to their country. We fled from our native land, said these unfortunate men, to avoid the tyranny and oppression of our British task-masters, and the same tyrannical hand has seized us here, and sent us back to be tried, and perhaps executed as rebels. Beside the privations, hunger and miseries that we endured, these poor Irishmen had before their eyes, the apprehension of a violent and ignominious death. While we talked among ourselves of the hard fate of these brave Hibernians, we were ashamed to lament our own.
I cannot help remarking here, that the plan of retaliation determined by President Madison, merits the respect and gratitude of the present and future generations of men. It was this energetic step that saved the lives, and insured the usual treatment of ordinary prisoners of war to these American soldiers of Irish birth. This firm determination of the American executive arrested the bloody hand of the British. They remembered Major Andre, and they recollected Sir James Asgill, under the administration of the great Washington, and they trembled for the fate of their own officers. May eternal blessings here, and hereafter, be the reward of Madison, for his righteous intention of retaliating on the enemy any public punishment that should be executed on these American soldiers, of Irish origin. While we feel gratitude and respect to the head of the nation for his scheme of retaliation, we cannot suppress our feelings of disgust towards the faction in our own country, who justified the British government in their conduct towards these few Irishmen, and condemned our own for protecting them from an ignominious death. I speak it with shame for my country—the ablest writers of the oppositionists, and the oldest and most celebrated ministers of religion, employed their venal pens and voices to condemn Mr. Madison, and to justify the British doctrine. This is a deep stain on the character of our clergy; and the subsequent conduct of the British, may serve to shew these ever meddling men, that our enemies despised them, and respected Madison.
Our voyage across the Atlantic afforded but few incidents for remark. Every day brought the same distressed sensations, and every night the same doleful feelings, arising from darkness, stench, increased debility and disease. The general and most distressing in the catalogue of our miseries was the almost unceasing torment of hunger. Many of us would have gladly partaken with our father's hogs, in their hog-troughs. This barbarous system of starvation reduced several of our hale and hearty young men to mere skeletons. What with the allowance of the enemy, and the allowance from our own government, in which was good hot coffee for breakfast, we were generally robust and hearty at Melville Island. Some of our companions might well be called fine looking fellows, when we came first on board the Regulus; but before we arrived on the coast of England, they were so reduced and weakened, that they tottered as they walked. It was the opinion of us all, that one young man absolutely died for want of sufficient food! Yes! Christian Reader, a young American, who was carried on board the Regulus man of war transport, perished for want of sufficient to eat. In this insufficiency of food, complaint was made to the captain of the Regulus, but it produced no increase of the scanty allowance; and had the common sailors possessed no more humanity than their officers, we might all have perished with hunger. You who never felt the agonizing torture of hunger can have no idea of our misery. The study of my profession had acquainted me, that when the stomach is empty and contracted to a certain degree, that it, in a measure, acts upon itself, and draws all the neighbouring organs into sympathy with its distress: this increases to an agony that ends in distraction; for it is well known that those who are starved to death, die raving distracted! Some of us in the course of this horrid voyage could have eaten a puppy or kitten, could we have laid hands upon either.
The manner in which the English generally treat their poor in their work-houses, in England, is infinitely worse than the treatment of our convicts in our state prisons. There are no very heavy chains, huge blocks, or iron stanchions in our prisons, as there are in the receptacles of the poor in England. We treat them with tenderness, as unfortunate fellow creatures, and not with harshness, as criminals.
Our constitutions, mind and body united, were so constantly impressed and worried with the desire of eating, that the torment followed us in our sleep. We were constantly dreaming of tables finely spread with a plenty of all those good and savory things with which we used to be regaled at home, when we would wake smacking our lips, and groaning with disappointment. I pretend not to say that the allowance was insufficient to keep some men pretty comfortable; but it was not half enough for some others. It is well known in common life, that one man will eat three times as much as another. The quality of the bread served out to us on board the Regulus, was not fit and proper for any human being. It was old, and more like the powder of rotten wood than bread stuff; and to crown all, it was full of worms. Often have I seen our poor fellows viewing their daily allowance of bread, with mixed sensations of pain and pleasure; with smiles and tears; not being able to determine whether they had best eat it all up at once, or eat it in small portions through the day. Some would devour all their bread at once, worms and all, while others would be eating small portions through the day. Some picked out the worms and threw them away; others eat them, saying, that they might as well eat the worm as his habitation. Some reasoned and debated a long time on the subject. Prejudice said, throw the nasty thing away, while gnawing hunger held his hand. Birds, said they, are nourished by eating worms; and if clean birds eat them, why may not man? Who feels any reluctance at eating of an oyster, with all its parts: and why not a worm?
One day while we were debating the subject, one of our jack tars set us a laughing, by crying out: "Retaliation, by G—, these d—d worms eat us when we are dead, and so we will eat them first." This shews that misery can sometimes laugh. I have observed that a sailor has generally more laughter and good humour in him than is to be found among any other class of men. They have, beside, a greater share of compassion than the soldier. We had repeated instances of their generosity: for while the epauletted officers of this British ship treated us like brutes, the common sailors would now and then give us of their own allowance; but they took care not to let their officers know it.
The Regulus had brought British soldiers to America, and among the rags and filth left behind them were myriads of fleas. These were at first a source of vexation, but at length their destruction became an amusement. We could not, however, overcome them; like the persecuted Christians of old times, when you killed one, twenty would seem to rise up in his place. Had I have known what I have since learnt and had been provided with the essential oil of pennyroyal, we should have conquered all these light troops in a few days. A few drops of this essential oil, dropped here and there upon the blankets infested with fleas, and they will abandon the garment. The effluvium of it destroys them.
Confined below, we knew little of what was going on upon deck; some of us, however, were more or less there every day. Nothing occurred worthy of notice during our passage to England, excepting the retaking of a brig captured a few hours before on the Grand Bank, by the frigate President, commodore Rodgers. From information obtained from the midshipman who commanded the prize, we learnt the course of the President, whereupon we altered ours to avoid being captured. A few hours after this we fell in with the Bellerophon, a British seventy-four, who went, from our information, in pursuit of the President. We could easily perceive that the fame of our frigates had inspired these masters of the ocean with a degree of respect bordering on dread. We overheard the sailors say that they had rather fall in with two French frigates than one American. We thought, or it might be conceit, that we were spoken to with more kindness at this time. I have certainly had occasion for remarking, that prosperity increases the insults and hard heartedness of the British; and that we never received so much humane attention as when they apprehended an attack from us, as in the case of alarm at Halifax. I am more and more convinced that cowardice is the mother of cruelty. Were I to draw the picture of cruelty, I would paint him with a feminine faintness. The free and horrible use of the halter in London, is from fear. I was brought up, all my life, even until I left my father's house, and came off without calculation, or reflection on this wild adventure in a privateer, in the opinion that the English were an humane, generous, and magnanimous people, and that none but Turks, Frenchmen, and Algerines, were cruel; but my experience for three years past has corrected my false notions of this proud nation. If they do not impale men as the Algerines and Turks do, or roast a man as the Indians do, and as the Inquisitors do, they will leave him to starve, and linger out his miserable days in the hole of a ship, or in a prison, where the blessed air is changed into a poison, and where the articles given him to eat are far worse in quality than the swill with which the American farmer feeds his hogs. How can an officer, how can any man, holding in society the rank of a gentleman, sit down to his meal in his cabin, when he has a hundred of his fellow creatures, some of them brought up with delicacy and refinement, and with the feelings of gentlemen: I say, how can he sit composedly down to his dinner, while men, as good as himself, are suffering for want of food. There is in this conduct either a bold cruelty, or a stupidity and want of reflection, that does no honour to that officer, or to those who gave him his command.
It happened when some of us were allowed in our turn to be on deck, that we would lay hold and pull or belay a rope when needed. When we arrived at Portsmouth, which was the 5th of October, we were visited by the health officer; and when we again weighed anchor to go to the quarantine ground, the boatswain's mate came to tell us that it was the captain's order that we should tumble up and assist at the capstan. Accordingly three or four went to assist; but one of our veteran tars bid him go and tell his captain that hunger and labour were not friends, and never would go together; and that prisoners who subsisted three days in a week on pea-water, could only give him pea-water assistance. This speech raised the temper of the officer of the deck, who sent down some marines, who drove us all up. There was among us a Dutchman, who was very forward in complying with the officers' request; but being awkward and careless withall, he suffered himself to be jambed between the end of the capstan-bar and the side of the ship, which hurt him badly. Some of the prisoners collected round their wounded companion, when the officer of the deck ordered them to take the d—d blunderheaded fellow below, and let some American take his place; but after this expression of brutality towards the poor jambed up Dutchman, not a man would go near the capstan, so one of their own crew filled up the vacancy made by the wounded Hollander.
A Mr. S–, who had some office of distinction in Newfoundland, if I mistake not he was the first in command of that dreary island. This gentleman, who I think they called general Smith, was passenger on board the Regulus. One day when I was upon deck, he asked me how many of the hundred prisoners could read and write. I told him that it was a rare thing to find a person, male or female, in New England, who could not write as well as read. Then, said he, New England must be covered with charity schools.—I replied, that we had no charity schools, or very few; at which he looked as if he thought I had uttered an absurdity. I then related in a few words our school system. I told him, that the primary condition or stipulation in the incorporation of every town in Massachusetts, and which was a "sine qua non" of every town, was a reserve of land, and a bond to maintain a school or schools, according to the number of inhabitants; that the teachers were supported by a tax, in the same way as we supported our clergy; that such schools were opened to every child, from the children of the first magistrate down to the children of the constable; and that there was no distinction, promotion or favour, but what arose from talent, industry and good behaviour. I told him that the children of the poorest people, generally went to school in the winter, while in the spring and summer they assisted their parents.
He walked about musing awhile, and then turning back, asked me if the clergy did not devote much of their time to the instruction of our youth—very seldom, sir—our young students of divinity, and theological candidates very often instruct youth; but when a gentleman is once ordained and settled as a parish minister, he never or very rarely keeps a school. At which the general appeared surprised. I added that sometimes episcopal clergymen kept a school, but never the presbyterian, or congregational ministers. He asked why the latter could not keep school as well as the former; I told him, because they were expected to write their own sermons, at which he laughed. Besides, parochial visits consume much of their time, and when a congregation have stipulated with a minister to fill the pulpit, and preach two sermons a week, visit the sick and attend funerals, they think he can have not too much time for composing sermons. They moreover consider it derogatory to the honor of his flock to be obliged to keep a school—when I told him that our clergymen bent all their force to instructing youth in morality and religion, he said, then they attempt to raise a structure before they lay a foundation for it. He seemed very strenuous that our priests should be employed in the education of youth, as he conceived that hired school masters had not the pious zeal that the priest would have. I suspect said General S. that your ministers are too proud and too lazy. I perceived his idea was, that a school master, hired to undergo the drudgery of teaching boys, was too much of an hireling to fill up to the full the important duties of a teacher; but he judged of them by the numerous Scotch school masters here and there in Canada, Nova Scotia, the West India islands and every where else, teaching for money merely. He did not know that our New England school masters were men of character, and consequence. Some of our very first men in these United States, have been teachers of youth. At this present time some of the sons of some of the first men in Massachusetts are village school masters; that is, they keep a school in the winter vacations of the University; and some of them for the first year after leaving college.
I was much pleased with the general; and have since learnt, that he was a very worthy and benevolent man; and that he had paid great attention to the education of youth in Newfoundland; and that it was, in a degree, his ruling passion.2 I wish I had then known as much of our school system, and of our system of public education at our Universities, as I do now; for I might have gratified his benevolent disposition by the recital. The ignorance of English gentlemen of the people of America, and of their education, is indeed surprising as well as mortifying. By their treatment of us, it is evident they consider us a sort of white savages, with minds as uncultivated, and dispositions as ferocious as their own allies, with their tomahawks and scalping knives. After conversing with this worthy Englishman, about the education of the common people in America, I could not but say to myself, little do you, good sir, and your haughty, and unfeeling captain imagine, that there are those among the hundred miserable men whom you keep confined in the hold of your ship, like so many Gallipago turtles, and who you allow to suffer for want of sufficient food; little do you think that there are among them those who have sufficient learning to lay the whole story of their sufferings before the American and English people; little do you imagine that the inhumane treatment of men every way as good as yourselves, is now recording, and will in due time be displayed to your mortification.