A
JOURNAL,
OF
A YOUNG MAN OF MASSACHUSETTS,
LATE
A SURGEON ON BOARD AN AMERICAN PRIVATEER,
WHO WAS CAPTURED AT SEA BY THE BRITISH, IN MAY, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN, AND WAS CONFINED FIRST,
AT MELVILLE ISLAND, HALIFAX, THEN AT CHATHAM, IN ENGLAND ... AND LAST,
AT DARTMOOR PRISON.
INTERSPERSED WITH
OBSERVATIONS, ANECDOTES AND REMARKS,
TENDING TO ILLUSTRATE THE MORAL AND POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF THREE NATIONS.
TO WHICH IS ADDED,
A CORRECT ENGRAVING OF DARTMOOR PRISON,
REPRESENTING THE MASSACRE OF AMERICAN PRISONERS,
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
"Nothing extenuate, or set down aught in malice."... SHAKESPEARE.
THE SECOND EDITION, With considerable Additions and Improvements.
BOSTON: PRINTED BY ROWE & HOOPER ... 78 STATE-STREET,
1816.
_District of Massachusetts, to wit:_
_District Clerk's Office._
(L. S.)
Be it remembered, that on the sixth day of March, A. D. 1816, and in the fortieth year of the Independence of the United States of America, ROWE & HOOPER, of the said District have deposited in this Office, the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as Proprietors, in the words following, to wit:
"A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, late a Surgeon on board an American privateer, who was captured at sea by the British, in May, eighteen hundred and thirteen, and was confined first, at Melville Island, Halifax, then at Chatham, in England, and last at Dartmoor Prison. Interspersed with Observations, Anecdotes and Remarks, tending to illustrate the moral and political characters of three nations. To which is added, a correct Engraving of Dartmoor Prison, representing the Massacre of American prisoners. Written by himself." "Nothing extenuate, or set down aught in malice."... Shakespeare.
In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and also to an Act entitled, "An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching, historical, and other prints."
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed.
- 2: Fortunately for us a Portuguese schooner was outside of us
- 3: On granting the crew half a pint of rum a day
- 4: When the brig gave us a broadside
- 5: I may be said to have entered the frigate Tenedos
- 6: Are allowed to infest our prisoners
- 7: Between these stalls or stanchions
- 8: And was ready to answer to the roll call of the turnkey
- 9: Having finished this eloquent harrangue
- 10: The chief of them lived in or near the town of Halifax
- 11: Who came from Quebec to Halifax and to Boston
- 12: It would have been contradicted
- 13: Was formerly called Chebucto by the native Indians
- 14: Was the opinion of the brave captain of the British frigate
- 15: First at Halifax then at Salem
- 16: Miller was asked the same question
- 17: And marching to Halifax was a miserable falsehood
- 18: A sort of trap door or cellar way
- 19: Excepting this pint of oatmeal porridge
- 20: Compared with those traitorous Irishmen
- 21: When we came first on board the Regulus
- 22: The Regulus had brought British soldiers to America
- 23: Not a man would go near the capstan
- 24: I added that sometimes episcopal clergymen kept a school
- 25: When she captured the Guerriere and afterwards the Java
- 26: Fumigated and partially white washed
- 27: And put on board the Malabar store ship
- 28: What gives most celebrity to this river is Chatham
- 29: And is named from the village of Gillingham
- 30: To send to Halifax to exchange them for our own men
- 31: Is to people Nova Scotia and Newfoundland with Scotchmen
- 32: It was the duty of the President and his twelve counsellors
- 33: Was a very unequal mode of punishment
- 34: They seemed calculated for gamesters
- 35: But not of cunning or legerdemain
- 36: And that of France under the name of Louis Baboon
- 37: Amidst the hooting and hisses of his countrymen
- 38: And a theme for ridicule among the federalists
- 39: And associated with none but federalists
- 40: The British never pretended to impress American citizens
- 41: Of firmer frames and firmer minds
- 42: Carstares maintained such a command of himself
- 43: When the Algerines captured some of our vessels
- 44: And two more apertures to confine his arms
- 45: Sir Sidney was then off Toulon
- 46: The Algerines and the Savages of our own wilderness
- 47: To be damned to everlasting reproach
- 48: And mention with pleasure the Poictiers
- 49: Their passage from Quebec to Halifax
- 50: Whenever these foreigners get drunk
- 51: The number of false notions that we imbibe
- 52: Whenever the contractor omitted to send us off soft bread
- 53: These newspapers were smuggled
- 54: It is surprizing that when our countryman
- 55: Many of whom were sick of typhus fever
- 56: Who should call another a Federalist
- 57: Our countrymen will gamble with certain Frenchmen
- 58: Of one virtue of our rattlesnakes
- 59: And in studying arithmetic and navigation
- 60: Obliged to stick the white cockade on their hats
- 61: Establish in their place the Hartford Convention
- 62: To every four who are not paupers or beggars
- 63: With the capitalists or mercantile interest
- 64: We are told in the history of Gillingham
- 65: The Britons pursue a malignant policy
- 66: Were taken by lieutenant Osmore
- 67: At the same time the sheepish note of baa
- 68: That if he and his officers should cry baa
- 69: Being an Indian of the Narraganset tribe
- 70: Does not Admiral Holmes know where Updike's Newtown is
- 71: Mixed with something of the ludicrous
- 72: That we are to be sent to Dartmoor prison
- 73: And sarcasm of our unfeeling enemies
- 74: We had obtained a drum and fife
- 75: On board the Nassau prison ship
- 76: The war faction I exclaim against
- 77: They assisted us to gain our liberty
- 78: Around they throw the baleful glance
- 79: With his tomahawk and scalping knife
- 80: That three frigates sent their boats into Marblehead
- 81: This frigate was ever after viewed as unlucky
- 82: Where she lost spar after spar
- 83: Which brought Osmore out of his cabin
- 84: At length Osmore became so enraged
- 85: The disorders on board the Bahama arise
- 86: Especially the contagion of the jail fever
- 87: When the captain of the Bahama seeing his folly
- 88: Restraints and deprivations that were death to landsmen
- 89: Sanctioned by general Armherst
- 90: The soldier thought himself better than the Jack tar
- 91: From having her husband and their father kidnapped
- 92: We soon came along side the Leyden
- 93: There this lewd conduct is a mark of debasement
- 94: It has for its motto ne quid falsi
- 95: A butt of beer was placed in a cart for sale
- 96: Whose sombre and doleful aspect chilled our blood
- 97: Dartmoor is a dreary spot of itself
- 98: Shortland gave him two guineas
- 99: Shortland considers us all as a base set of men
- 100: Dobson and M'Grath deserve medals of gold
- 101: But they despised and hated Shortland
- 102: Especially in the long and cheerless nights
- 103: And to speak in raptures of the glorious war in 1759
- 104: Forgive this worse than Algerine treatment
- 105: Captain Shortland punished the whole
- 106: And Shortland was awed by their character
- 107: Compared with these clumsy militia
- 108: Unfeeling substitute for a live one
- 109: To the hardened and impenitent sinner
- 110: And the federalists of Massachusetts
- 111: And an odour from Desdemona and company
- 112: Resembled very much the Grecian and Roman democracies
- 113: Our resource from hunger was sleep
- 114: Or to the Boston federal papers
- 115: It is undeniable that Governor Strong has
- 116: His conduct as governor of Massachusetts
- 117: These very federalists called the act wicked and inhuman
- 118: Shortland could not resist the commercial interest
- 119: If Shortland and Beasley were both drowning
- 120: But New Orleans and Jackson
- 121: Captain Shortland was gone from home
- 122: The prisoners stated to Shortland
- 123: Shortland sent in a message to the committee
- 124: Beasly may have been guilty of
- 125: I saw Captain Shortland open the gates
- 126: And fired several vollies in succession
- 127: Shortland ordered them to charge
- 128: And the prisoners immediately retreated to their prisons
- 129: I was insulted by the soldiery
- 130: Samuel Lowdy having been duly sworn
- 131: Shortland order them to fire
- 132: And strongly reprobated Captain Shortland
- 133: It was ever the invariable practice of the turnkeys
- 134: The Committee of the American prisoners
- 135: Beasly to the American Committee
- 136: Committee of American Prisoners
- 137: Some of the soldiers observed to this deponent
- 138: And an additional reason for precaution
- 139: Magrath endeavored by quiet means and persuasion
- 140: That captain Shortland gave that order
- 141: And resistance to the turnkeys in shutting the prisons
- 142: Larpent and myself had no difference of opinion
- 143: With a request that he would have them fairly copied
- 144: Gave himself Impres'd
- 145: Gave himself Impres'd
- 146: Reply to KING and LARPENT'S Report
- 147: After having finished the examination of the committee
- 148: When we were told by one of the turnkeys
- 149: And had actually got into the barrack yard
- 150: With Shortland at their head
- 151: Reported Shortland as justifiable
- 152: Captain Shortland was in the market square
- 153: That Shortland did give that order
- 154: The conduct of Thomas George Shortland
- 155: So hitherto unheard of a crime
- 156: And more particularly Massachusetts
- 157: And even the slaughter of our countrymen
- 158: But as his Royal Highness has observed
- 159: The Right Honorable Viscount Castlereagh
- 160: Attended by the detestable Shortland
- 161: And with unwilling and reluctant step
- 162: Were addicted to this unbenevolent wit
- 163: He enquired if dit Shortland vas Jew or Christian
- 164: And cannot now honestly alter my language
- 165: The spirit of animosity in America
- 166: That the very term federalism
- 167: Less than a penny sterling a gallon
- 168: Which sometimes reached Dartmoor prison
