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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 to this shameful account we add their cruelty to the vanquished
Scotch, in 1745, and of late years towards the brave Irish, together
with what _we_ have known of them in the revolutionary war, and in the
present one, we can feel no pride in claiming kindred with them. They
are a sluggish, cold, hard-fibred race of men, on whom soft and
delicate airs of music make no agreeable impression. Loud and
thundering sounds, such as the ringing of heavy bells, beating of
drums, and firing of cannon, and the gothic _hourra_ are requisite to
move the phlegm that surrounds the tough heart of old _John Bull_.

When the Algerines captured some of our vessels, and made slaves of
the crew, a very high degree of sensibility was excited. It was the
theme of every newspaper and oration, and the subject of almost every
conversation. The horror of Algerine slavery was considered as the ne
plus ultra of human misery; but it has so happened, that we have many
sailors returned again to their country, who have been enslaved at
Algiers; and have been impressed and detained on board British men of
war, and afterwards thrown into their prison-ships. The united opinion
of these people is, the Algerine slavery is much more tolerable than
the _British_ slavery. The Algerines make the common sailors work
from six to eight hours in the day; but they give them very good
vegetable food, and enough of it; and lodge them in airy places; and
always dispose the officers _according to their rank_; whereas the
British seem to take a delight in confounding and mixing together, the
officers with their men. As to their punishments among themselves,
they will cut off a man's head; and strangle him with a bowstring, in
a summary manner; but a Turk, or Algerine, would sicken at the sight
of a whipping in the navy; and in the _army_ of the _Christian_ king
of England. There is no nation upon this globe of earth that treats
its soldiers and sailors with that degree of barbarity common to their
camps, garrisons and men of war; for what they lack in the number of
lashes on board a ship, they make up in the severity of infliction, so
as to render the punishment nearly equal to the Russian _knout_.

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