Their first prize was a vessel carrying 12 guns. In a short time they came in contact with an English ship mounting 32 guns with 90 men accompanied by two brigs. Under the disguise of British colors Capt. Young ran alongside the ship. In a few brief moments the star spangled banner was floating in the breeze upon the three English vessels. Lieutenant Barney was put in charge of one of them. Becoming separated from the others he was captured by the seventy-four Intrepid commanded by Capt. Malloy and treated with great cruelty. On arriving at New York Lieut. Barney and 70 other prisoners were placed on board the ship of war Yarmouth by Admiral Rodney. They were confined under five decks in a dark filthy apartment but three feet between floors--twelve feet by twenty in area and ordered to England. They were 53 days performing the passage. Eleven of the prisoners died on the way--the survivors were scarcely able to walk. They were covered with vermin and when landed could not bear the light for some time. They were sent to Mill prison where they found nearly three hundred of their fellow-countrymen sharing the same tender mercies with themselves. Soon after this new accession of rebels preparations for escape were discovered. Lieut. Barney was suspected--loaded with heavy irons and thrown into a dungeon for thirty days. By the assistance of a soldier he made his escape from prison on the 18th of May 1781--was discovered and remanded. In a second attempt he succeeded--visited Bristol, London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague. He reached Philadelphia in March 1782 amidst the heart-felt congratulations of his family and numerous friends. His sufferings had been aggravated and heart-rending. He had almost tasted death. The barbarous treatment of the American prisoners on board the English prison-ships is without a parallel. It has left a stigma on the Christian escutcheon of the British nation that time or angels' tears can never expunge--a foul blot, lasting as the pages of history. My strong language may be excused when I inform the reader that one out of eight of my patriot uncles was literally suffocated and starved to death on one of those ships in the port of New York. Were I to draw a full picture of the demoniac cruelties heaped upon the American prisoners in the loathsome dungeons of these floating Pandemoniums--a horror too painful to be borne would oppress the aching heart of the reader.