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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

The firing in the square having continued for some time, by which
    several of the prisoners sustained injuries, the greater part of
    them appear to have been running back with the utmost
    precipitation and confusion to their respective prisons, and the
    cause for further firing seems at this period to have ceased. It
    appears, accordingly, that captain Shortland was in the market
    square exerting himself and giving orders to that effect, and that
    lieutenant Fortye had succeeded in stopping the fire of his part
    of the guard.

    Under these circumstances, it is very difficult to find any
    justification for the further continuance and renewal of the
    firing, which certainly took place both in the prison yards and
    elsewhere; though we have some evidence of subsequent provocation
    given to the military, and resistance to the turnkeys in shutting
    the prisons, and of stones being thrown out from within the prison
    doors.

    The subsequent firing rather appears to have arisen from the state
    of individual irritation and exasperation on the part of the
    soldiers, who followed the prisoners into their yards, and from
    the absence of nearly all of the officers who might have
    restrained it as well as from the great difficulty of putting an
    end to a firing when once commenced under such circumstances.
    Captain Shortland was from this time busily occupied with the
    turnkeys in the square, receiving and taking care of the wounded.
    Ensign White remained with his guard at the breach, and
    lieutenants Ayelyne and Fortye, the only other subalterns known to
    have been present, continued with the main bodies of their
    respective guards.

    The time of the day, which was the officers' dinner hour, will in
    some measure explain this, as it caused the absence of every
    officer from the prison whose presence was not indispensable
    there. And this circumstance which has been urged as an argument
    to prove the intention of the prisoners to take this opportunity
    to escape, tended to increase the confusion, and to prevent those
    great exertions being made which might perhaps have obviated a
    portion at least of the mischief which ensued.

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