This den of horrors, known as "Newgate Prison," was an old worked-out copper mine, sixty feet under ground, in the hills of East Granby. The only entrance to it was by means of a ladder down a shaft which led to the caverns under ground. The darkness was intense; the caves reeked with filth; vermin abounded; water trickled from the roof and oozed from the sides of the cavern; huge masses of earth were perpetually falling off. In the dampness and the filth the clothing of the prisoners grew mouldy and rotted away, and their limbs became stiff with rheumatism. During the Revolutionary war Loyalists of importance were confined in this place of horrors, then of national importance, although now but seldom referred to by American writers. Loyalists were consigned to it for safe keeping by Washington himself. In a letter dated December 11, 1775, addressed to the Committee of Safety, Simsbury, Conn., he informed them that the "charges of their imprisonment will be at the Continental expense," and "to confine them in such manner so that they cannot possibly make their escape."[47] [47] "History of Simsbury and Granby," page 125. "Driven to desperation the Loyalists rose against their guards. About 10 o'clock at night, on the 18th of May, 1781, when all the guards but two had retired to rest, a wife of one of the prisoners appeared, to whom permission was given to visit her husband in the cavern. Upon the hatches being removed to admit her passing down, the prisoners who were at the door, and prepared for the encounter, rushed up, seized the gun of the sentry on duty, who made little or no resistance, and became master of the guard-room before those who were asleep could be aroused to make defence. The officer of the guard who resisted was killed, and others wounded. The guard was easily overcome, a few sought safety in flight, but the greater number were disarmed by the prisoners. The prisoners, numbering twenty-eight persons, having equipped themselves with the captured arms, escaped, and, with few exceptions avoided recapture."[48] [48] "History of Simsbury and Granby," pp. 123, 124. The heart sickens at the recital of the sufferings of the Loyalists, and we turn in disgust from the views which the pen of faithful history records. After the legislation of 1778 every grievance the colonists had put forward as a reason for taking up arms had been redressed, every claim they had presented had been abandoned, and from the time when the English parliament surrendered all right of taxation and internal legislation in the colonies, and when the English Commissioners laid their propositions before the Americans, the character of the war had wholly changed. It was no longer a war for self-taxation and constitutional liberty. It was now an attempt, with the assistance of France and Spain, to establish independence by shattering the British empire.