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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

We are now at peace, and the tide of party has so far slackened, that
we can tell the truth without the suspicion of political, or party
designs. I shall relate only what I have collected from the men
themselves, who were never in the way of reading our newspapers, or of
hearing of the speeches of the _friends of the British in Congress_;
or in our State Legislatures. I think I ought, however, here to
premise, that my family were of that party in Massachusetts called
_Federal_, that is, we voted for Governor Strong, and federal Senators
and Representatives; our clergyman was also federal, and preached and
_prayed_ federally; and we read none but _federal_ newspapers, and
associated with none but _federalists_; of course we believed all that
Governor Strong said, and approved all that our Senators and
Representatives voted, and believed all that was printed in the
Boston _federal_ papers. The whole family, and myself with them,
believed all that Colonel Timothy Pickering had written about
impressment of seamen, and about the weakness, and wickedness of the
President and administration; we believed them all to be under the pay
and influence of Bonaparte, who we knew was the first Lieutenant of
Satan. We believed all that was said about "_Free trade and sailors'
rights_," was all stuff and nonsense, brought forward by the
Republicans, whom we called _Democrats_ and _Jacobins_, to gull the
people out of their liberty and property, in order to surrender both
to the Tyrant of France. We believed entirely that the war was
"unnecessary" and "wicked," and declared with no other design but to
injure England and gratify France. We believed also that the whole of
the administration, and every man of the Republican party, from
Jefferson and Madison, down to our ---- was either fool or knave. If
we did not believe that every republican was a scoundrel, we were sure
and certain that every scoundrel was a republican. In some points our
belief was as strong and as fixed as any in the papal dominions; for
example--we maintained stiffly that Governor Strong, Lieut. Governor
Phillips, H. G. Otis, and John Lowell and Francis Blake, Esqrs. were,
for talents, knowledge, piety and virtue, the very first men in the
United States, and ought to be at the head of the nation: or--to
express it _all_ in one word, as my sister once did, "_Federalism is
the politics of a GENTLEMAN, and of a LADY_; but _Republicanism is the
low cant of the vulgar_; of such men as your Tom Jeffersons, Jim
Madisons, and John Adams', and Col. Monroes."

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