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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 : $b 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 ofWaterhouse, Benjamin

History

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 : $b 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

Waterhouse, Benjamin

Dartmoor Prison; United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Prisoners and prisons

If they complained of their hard fate to their messmates, they were
liable to punishment, and if they attempted to regain their liberty,
and were detected, they were stripped, tied up, and most cruelly and
disgracefully whipped, like a negro slave. Can any thing be conceived
more humiliating to the feelings of men, born and brought up as we all
are? Can we ever be cordial friends with such a people, even in time
of peace? Will ever a man of our country, or his children after him,
forgive this worse than Algerine treatment?

Several of the most intelligent of these impressed men related to me
the particulars of the treatment, they, at various times, received;
and I had committed them to paper; but they are too mean, low and
disgusting to be recorded. The pitiful evasions, unworthy arts, and
even falsehoods of some captains of his Britannic majesty's line of
battle ships, when a seaman produced his protection; or offered to
prove his nativity, or identify his person, as marked in his
descriptive roll, were such, as to make me bless my stars that I did
not belong to their service. There were, however, some instances of
noble and generous conduct; which came up to the idea we, once,
entertained of English honor, before the solid bullion of the English
naval character was beaten into such thin, such very thin gold leaf,
as to gild so many thousands of their epauletted seamen. The officers
of the _Poictiers_ were spoken of with respect; and, by what I could
learn, the smaller the vessel, the worse treatment was experienced by
our prisoners, and impressed seamen; your little-big-men being always
the greatest tyrants. Among these small fry of the mistress of the
ocean, "_you damned Yankee rascal_," was a common epithet. Our own
land officers had often to remark, when they came in contact with the
British, especially in the night, as at Bridgewater, and at the
repulse at Fort Erie, that the British colonels and other officers,
were heard repeatedly to use expressions of this sort--"No quarter to
the _damned yankees_!" "Form! Form! for the _damned yankees_ are close
upon us!" Colonel _Drummond's_ last words, when he surmounted the
rampart at Fort Erie, was in the like style of language. How many
lives have these expressions of contempt cost the British!

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