American Prisoners of the Revolution Part 14

"My protectress then brought a young man to me who she said was her brother, and who would show me the way to the harbour. She then cut a stick about eight feet long, and he took hold of one end and gave me the other. She told me that she had instructed her brother what to say at the harbour. He then led off, and I followed. During our walk I put out my hand to him several times, and made signs of friendship, but he seemed to be afraid of me, and would look upwards and then fall flat on the ground and kiss it: this he repeated as often as I made any sign or token of friendship to him.

"When we had got near the harbor he made a sign for me to sit down upon a rock, which I did. He then left me and went, as I supposed, to talk to the people at the water concerning me; but I had not sat long before I saw a vessel coming round the point into the harbor.

"They soon came on sh.o.r.e in the boat. I went down to them and made my case known and when the boat returned on board they took me with them.

It was a Dutch snow bound from China to Batavia. After they had wooded and watered they set sail for Batavia:--being out about three weeks we arrived there: I tarried on board her about three weeks longer, and then got on board a Spanish ship which was from Rio de la Plate bound to Spain, but by stress of weather was obliged to put into this port. After the vessel had repaired we sailed for Spain. When we made the Cape of Good Hope we fell in with two British cruisers of twenty guns each, who engaged us and did the vessel considerable damage, but at length we beat them off, and then run for the coast of Brazil, where we arrived safe, and began to work at repairing our ship, but upon examination she was found to be not fit to proceed on her voyage. She was therefore condemned. I then left her and got on board a Portuguese snow bound up to St. Helena, and we arrived safe at that place.

"I then went on sh.o.r.e and quitted her and engaged in the garrison there to do duty as a soldier for my provisions till some ship should arrive there bound for England. After serving there a month I entered on board a ship called the Stormont, but orders were soon after received that no Indiaman should sail without convoy; and we lay here six months, during which time the Captain died.

"While I was in St. Helena the vessel in which I came out from England arrived here, homeward bound; she being on the return from her second voyage since I came from England. And now I made known my case to Captain Kerr, who readily took me on board the Princess Royal, and used me kindly and those of my old ship-mates on board were glad to see me again. Captain Kerr on first seeing me asked me if I was not afraid to let him know who I was, and endeavored to frighten me; yet his conduct towards me was humane and kind.

"It had been very sickly on board the Princess Royal, and the greater part of the hands who came out of England in her had died, and she was now manned chiefly with lascars. Among those who had died was the boatswain, and boatswain's mate, and Captain Kerr made me boatswain of the ship, in which office I continued until we arrived in London, and it protected me from being impressed upon our arrival in England.

"We sailed from St. Helena about the first of November, 1781, under convoy of the Experiment of fifty guns, commanded by Captain Henry, and the Shark sloop of war of 18 guns, and we arrived in London about the first of March, 1782, it having been about two years and a half from the time I had left it.

"In about a fortnight after our arrival in London I entered on board the King George, a store-ship bound to Antigua, and after four weeks pa.s.sage arrived there.

"The second night after we came to anchor in Antigua I took the ship's boat and escaped in her to Montserrat (in the West Indies) which place had but just before been taken by the French.

"Here I did not meet with the treatment which I expected; for on my arrival at Montserrat I was immediately taken up and put in prison, where I continued twenty-four hours, and my boat taken from me. I was then sent to Guadaloupe, and examined by the Governor. I made known my case to him, by acquainting him with the misfortunes I had gone through in my captivity, and in making my escape. He seemed to commiserate me, gave me ten dollars for the boat that I escaped in, and provided a pa.s.sage for me on board a French brigantine that was bound from Gaudaloupe to Philadelphia.

"The vessel sailed in a few days, and now my prospects were favorable, but my misfortunes were not to end here, for after being out twenty-one days we fell in with the Anphitrite and Amphene, two British cruizers, off the Capes of Delaware, by which we were taken, carried in to New York and put on board the Jersey prison ship. After being on board about a week a cartel was fitted out for France, and I was sent on board as a French prisoner. The cartel was ordered for St. Maloes, and after a pa.s.sage of thirty-two days we arrived safe at that place.

"Finding no American vessel at St. Male's, I went to the Commandant, and procured a pa.s.s to go by land to Port l'Orient. On my arrival there I found three American privateers belonging to Beverley in the Ma.s.sachusetts. I was much elated at seeing so many of my countrymen, some of whom I was well acquainted with. I immediately entered on board the Buccaneer, Captain Pheirson. We sailed on a cruise, and after being out eighteen days we returned to L'Orient with six prizes. Three days after our arrival in port we heard the joyful news of peace; on which the privateer was dismantled, the people discharged, and Captain P sailed on a merchant voyage to Norway.

"I then entered on board a brig bound to Lisbon (Captain Ellenwood of Beverley) and arrived at Lisbon in eight days. We took in a cargo of salt, and sailed for Beverley, where we arrived the ninth of May, 1783.

Being now only fifteen miles from home, I immediately set out for Cape Ann, went to my father's house, and had an agreeable meeting with my friends, after an absence of almost six years.

"John Blatchford

"New London, May 10th, 1788.

"N. B. Those who are acquainted with the narrator will not scruple to give full credence to the foregoing account, and others may satisfy themselves by conversing with him. The scars he carries are a proof of his narrative, and a gentleman of New London who was several months with him, was acquainted with part of his sufferings, though it was out of his power to relieve him. He is a poor man with a wife and two children.

His employment is fishing and coasting. _Editor_."

Our readers may be interested to know what became of John Blatchford, who wrote, or dictated, the narrative we have given, in the year 1788.

He was, at that time, a married man. He had married a young woman named Ann Grover. He entered the merchant marine, and died at Port au Prince about the year 1794, when nearly thirty-three years of age. Thus early closed the career of a brave man, who had experienced much hardship, and had suffered greatly from man's inhumanity to man, and who is, as far as we know, the only American prisoner sent to the East Indies who ever returned to tell the story of the barbarities inflicted upon him.

CHAPTER XVII

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND OTHERS ON THE SUBJECT OF AMERICAN PRISONERS

When Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane were in Paris they wrote the following letter to Lord Stormont, the English Amba.s.sador to France.

Paris, April 2nd, 1777.

My Lord:--

We did ourselves the honor of writing some time since to your Lordship on the subject of exchanging prisoners: you did not condescend to give us any answer, and therefore we expect none to this. We, however, take the liberty of sending you copies of certain depositions which we shall transmit to Congress, whereby it will be known to your Court, that the United States are not unacquainted with the barbarous treatment their people receive when they have the misfortune to be your prisoners here in Europe, and that if your conduct towards us is not altered, it is not unlikely that severe reprisals may be thought justifiable from a necessity of putting some check to such abominable practices. For the sake of humanity it is to be wished that men would endeavor to alleviate the unavoidable miseries attending a state of war. It has been said that among the civilized nations of Europe the ancient horrors of that state are much diminished; but the compelling men by chains, stripes, and famine to fight against their friends and relatives, is a new mode of barbarity, which your nation alone has the honor of inventing, and the sending American prisoners of war to Africa and Asia, remote from all probability of exchange, and where they can scarce hope ever to hear from their families, even if the unwholesomeness of the climate does not put a speedy end to their lives, is a manner of treating captives that you can justify by no other precedent or custom except that of the black savages of Guinea. We are your Lordship's most obedient, humble servants, Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane.

The reply to this letter was laconic.

"The King's Amba.s.sador recognizes no letters from Rebels, except when they come to ask mercy."

Inclosed in the letter from our representatives were the following depositions.

THE DEPOSITION OF ELIPHALET DOWNER

Eliphalet Downer, Surgeon, taken in the Yankee privateer, testifies that after he was made prisoner by Captains Ross and Hodge, who took advantage of the generous conduct of Captain Johnson of the Yankee to them his prisoners, and of the confidence he placed in them in consequence of that conduct and their a.s.surances; he and his countrymen were closely confined, yet a.s.sured that on their arrival in port they should be set at liberty, and these a.s.surances were repeated in the most solemn manner, instead of which they were, on their approach to land, in the hot weather of August, shut up in a small cabin; the windows of which were spiked down and no air admitted, insomuch that they were all in danger of suffocation from the excessive heat.

Three or four days after their arrival in the river Thames they were relieved from this situation in the middle of the night, hurried on board a tender and sent down to Sheerness, where the deponent was put into the Ardent, and there falling sick of a violent fever in consequence of such treatment, and languishing in that situation for some time, he was removed, still sick, to the Mars, and notwithstanding repeated pet.i.tions to be suffered to be sent to prison on sh.o.r.e, he was detained until having the appearance of a mortification in his legs, he was sent to Haslar hospital, from whence after recovering his health, he had the good fortune to make his escape.

While on board those ships and in the hospital he was informed and believes that many of his countrymen, after experiencing even worse treatment than he, were sent to the East Indies, and many of those taken at Quebec were sent to the coast of Africa, as soldiers.

THE DEPOSITION OF CAPTAIN SETH CLARK OF NEWBURY PORT IN THE STATE OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS BAY IN AMERICA

"This deponent saith that on his return from Cape Nichola Mole to Newbury Port, he was taken on the 17th of September last by an armed schooner in his British Majesty's service, ---- Coats, Esquire, Commander, and carried down to Jamaica, on his arrival at which place he was sent on board the Squirrel, another armed vessel, ---- Douglas, Esquire, Commander, where, although master and half owner of the vessel in which he was taken, he was returned as a common sailor before the mast, and in that situation sailed for England in the month of November, on the twenty-fifth of which month they took a schooner from Port a Pie to Charlestown, S. C., to which place she belonged, when the owner, Mr.

Burt, and the master, Mr. Bean, were brought on board. On the latter's denying he had any ship papers Captain Douglas ordered him to be stripped and tied up and then whipped with a wire cat of nine tails that drew blood every stroke and then on his saying that he had thrown his papers overboard he was untied and ordered to his duty as a common sailor, with no place for himself or his people to lay on but the decks.

On their arrival at Spithead, the deponent was removed to the Monarch, and there ordered to do duty as a fore-mast-man, and on his refusing on account of inability to do it, he was threatened by the Lieutenant, a Mr. Stoney, that if he spoke one word to the contrary he should be brought to the gangway, and there severely flogged.

"After this he was again removed and put on board the Bar-fleur, where he remained until the tenth of February. On board this ship the deponent saw several American prisoners, who were closely confined and ironed, with only four men's allowance to six. These prisoners and others informed this deponent that a number of American prisoners had been taken out of the ship and sent to the East Indies and the coast of Africa, which he has told would have been his fate, had he arrived sooner.

"This deponent further saith, That in Haslar hospital, to which place on account of sickness he was removed from the Bar-fleur, he saw a Captain Chase of Providence, New England, who told him he had been taken in a sloop of which he was half owner and master, on his pa.s.sage from Providence to South Carolina, by an English transport, and turned over to a ship of war, where he was confined in irons thirteen weeks, insulted, beat, and abused by the petty officers and common sailors, and on being released from irons was ordered to do duty as a foremost man until his arrival in England, when being dangerously ill he was sent to said hospital."

Paris March 30th. 1777.

Benjamin Franklin, in a letter written in 1780, to a Mr. Hartley, an English gentleman who was opposed to the war, said that Congress had investigated the cruelties perpetrated by the English upon their defenceless prisoners, and had instructed him to prepare a _school book_ for the use of American children, to be ill.u.s.trated by thirty-five good engravings, each to picture some scene of horror, some enormity of suffering, such as should indelibly impress upon the minds of the school children a dread of British rule, and a hatred of British malice and wickedness!

The old philosopher did not accomplish this task: had he done so it is improbable that we would have so long remained in ignorance of some of the facts which we are now endeavoring to collect. It will be pleasant to glance, for a moment, on the other side the subject. It is well known that there was a large party in England, who, like Benjamin Franklin's correspondent, were opposed to the war; men of humanity, fair-minded enough to sympathize with the struggles of an oppressed people, of the same blood as themselves.

"The Prisoners of 1776, A Relic of the Revolution," is a little book edited by the Rev. R. Livesey, and published in Boston, in 1854. The facts in this volume were complied from the journal of Charles Herbert of Newburyport, Ma.s.s. This young man was taken prisoner in December, 1776. He was a sailor on board the brigantine Dolton. He and his companions were confined in the Old Mill Prison in Plymouth, England.

Herbert, who was in his nineteenth year, was a prisoner more than two years. He managed to keep a journal during his captivity, and has left us an account of his treatment by the English which is a pleasant relief in its contrast to the dark pictures that we have drawn of the wretchedness of American prisoners elsewhere. A collection of upwards of $30,000 was taken up in England for the relief of our prisoners confined in English jails.

Herbert secreted his journal in a chest which had a false bottom. It is too long to give in its entirety, but we have made a few extracts which will describe the treatment the men received in England, where all that was done was open to public inspection, and where no such inhuman monsters as Cunningham were suffered to work their evil will upon their victims.

"Dec. 24th, 1776. We were taken by the Reasonable, man-of-war of 64 guns. I put on two shirts, pair of drawers and breeches, and trousers over them, two or three jackets, and a pair of new shoes, and then filled my bosom and pockets as full as I could carry. Nothing but a few old rags and twelve old blankets were sent to us. Ordered down to the cable tier. Almost suffocated. Nothing but the bare cable to lie on, and that very uneven.

"Jan. 15, 1777. We hear that the British forces have taken Fort Washington with a loss of 800."

After several changes Herbert was put on board the Tarbay, a ship of 74 guns, and confined between decks, with not room for all to lie down at once.

"Very cold. Have to lie on a wet deck without blankets. Some obliged to sit up all night."