"The room in which they were confined was railed with boards. One of these they determined to cut off so as to make a hole large enough to pass through, and then to creep along till they should come to the next or middle entry; and there lower themselves down into this entry by a blanket. If they should not be discovered, the passage to the walls of the fort was easy. In the evening, after the sentinels had seen the prisoners retire to bed, General Wadsworth got up, and standing in a chair attempted to cut with his knife, the intended opening, but soon found it impracticable. The next day, by giving a soldier a dollar they procured a gimlet. With this instrument they proceeded cautiously and as silently as possible to separate the board, and in order to conceal every appearance from their servants and from the officers, their visitors, they carefully covered the gimlet holes with chewed bread. At the end of three weeks, their labors were so far completed, that it only remained to cut with a knife, the parts which were left to hold the piece in its place. When their preparations were finished, they learned that the privateer in which they were to embark was daily expected. "In the evening of the 18th of June, a very severe storm of rain, with great darkness and almost incessant lightning, came on. This the prisoners considered as the propitious moment. Having extinguished their lights, they began to cut the corners of the board, and in less than an hour the intended opening was completed. The noise which the operation occasioned was drowned by the rain falling on the roof. Major Benton first ascended to the ceiling, and pressed himself through the opening. General Wadsworth next, having put the corner of his blanket through the hole and made it fast by a strong wooden skewer, attempted to make his way through, standing on a chair below, but it was with extreme difficulty that he at length effected it, and reached the middle entry. From this he passed through the door which he found open, and made his way to the wall of the fort, and had to encounter the greatest difficulty before he could ascend to the top. He had now to creep along the top of the fort between the sentry boxes, at the very moment when the relief was shifting sentinels, but the falling of the heavy rain kept the sentinels within their boxes, and favored his escape. Having now fastened his blanket round a picket at the top, he let himself down through the chevaux-de-frise to the ground, and, in a manner astonishing to himself, made his way into the open field. Here he was obliged to grope his way among rocks, stumps and brush in the darkness of night, till he reached the cove. Happily the tide had ebbed, and he was enabled to cross the water, which was about a mile in breadth, and not more than three feet deep.