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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

On the evening of the 6th, about 6 o'clock, it was clearly proved
    to us, that a breach or hole had been made in one of the prison
    walls, sufficient for a full sized man to pass, and that others
    had been commenced in the course of the day near the same spot,
    though never completed.

    That a number of the prisoners were over the railing erected to
    prevent them from communicating with the sentinels on the walls,
    which was of course forbidden by the regulations of the prison,
    and that in the space between the railing and those walls they
    were tearing up pieces of turf, and wantonly pelting each other in
    a noisy and disorderly manner.

    That a much more considerable number of the prisoners was
    collected together at that time in one of their yards near the
    place where the breach was effected, and that although such
    collection of prisoners was not unusual at other times (the
    Gambling Tables being commonly kept in that part of the yard) yet,
    when connected with the circumstances of the breach, and the time
    of the day, which was after the hour the signal for the prisoners
    to retire to their respective prisons had ceased to sound, it
    became a natural and just ground of alarm to those who had charge
    of the depot.

    It was also in evidence that in the building formerly the petty
    officers' prison, but now the guard barrack, which stands in the
    yard to which the hole in the wall would serve as a communication,
    a part of the arms of the guard who were off duty, were usually
    kept in the racks, and though there was no evidence that this was,
    in any respect, the motive which induced the prisoners to make the
    opening in the wall, or even that they were ever acquainted with
    the fact, it naturally became at least a further cause of
    suspicion and alarm, and an additional reason for precaution.

    Upon these grounds captain Shortland appears to us to have been
    justified in giving the order, which about this time he seems to
    have given, to sound the alarm bell, the usual signal for
    collecting the officers of the depot and putting the military on
    the alert.

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