A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed.

The manner in which the English generally treat their poor in their work-houses, in England, is infinitely worse than the treatment of our convicts in our state prisons. There are no very heavy chains, huge blocks, or iron stanchions in our prisons, as there are in the receptacles of the poor in England. We treat them with tenderness, as unfortunate fellow creatures, and not with harshness, as criminals.

Our constitutions, mind and body united, were so constantly impressed and worried with the desire of eating, that the torment followed us in our sleep. We were constantly dreaming of tables finely spread with a plenty of all those good and savory things with which we used to be regaled at home, when we would wake smacking our lips, and groaning with disappointment. I pretend not to say that the allowance was insufficient to keep some men pretty comfortable; but it was not half enough for some others. It is well known in common life, that one man will eat three times as much as another. The quality of the bread served out to us on board the Regulus, was not fit and proper for any human being. It was old, and more like the powder of rotten wood than bread stuff; and to crown all, it was full of worms. Often have I seen our poor fellows viewing their daily allowance of bread, with mixed sensations of pain and pleasure; with smiles and tears; not being able to determine whether they had best eat it all up at once, or eat it in small portions through the day. Some would devour all their bread at once, worms and all, while others would be eating small portions through the day. Some picked out the worms and threw them away; others eat them, saying, that they might as well eat the worm as his habitation. Some reasoned and debated a long time on the subject. Prejudice said, throw the nasty thing away, while gnawing hunger held his hand. Birds, said they, are nourished by eating worms; and if clean birds eat them, why may not man? Who feels any reluctance at eating of an oyster, with all its parts: and why not a worm?

One day while we were debating the subject, one of our jack tars set us a laughing, by crying out: "Retaliation, by G—, these d—d worms eat us when we are dead, and so we will eat them first." This shews that misery can sometimes laugh. I have observed that a sailor has generally more laughter and good humour in him than is to be found among any other class of men. They have, beside, a greater share of compassion than the soldier. We had repeated instances of their generosity: for while the epauletted officers of this British ship treated us like brutes, the common sailors would now and then give us of their own allowance; but they took care not to let their officers know it.

The Regulus had brought British soldiers to America, and among the rags and filth left behind them were myriads of fleas. These were at first a source of vexation, but at length their destruction became an amusement. We could not, however, overcome them; like the persecuted Christians of old times, when you killed one, twenty would seem to rise up in his place. Had I have known what I have since learnt and had been provided with the essential oil of pennyroyal, we should have conquered all these light troops in a few days. A few drops of this essential oil, dropped here and there upon the blankets infested with fleas, and they will abandon the garment. The effluvium of it destroys them.

Confined below, we knew little of what was going on upon deck; some of us, however, were more or less there every day. Nothing occurred worthy of notice during our passage to England, excepting the retaking of a brig captured a few hours before on the Grand Bank, by the frigate President, commodore Rodgers. From information obtained from the midshipman who commanded the prize, we learnt the course of the President, whereupon we altered ours to avoid being captured. A few hours after this we fell in with the Bellerophon, a British seventy-four, who went, from our information, in pursuit of the President. We could easily perceive that the fame of our frigates had inspired these masters of the ocean with a degree of respect bordering on dread. We overheard the sailors say that they had rather fall in with two French frigates than one American. We thought, or it might be conceit, that we were spoken to with more kindness at this time. I have certainly had occasion for remarking, that prosperity increases the insults and hard heartedness of the British; and that we never received so much humane attention as when they apprehended an attack from us, as in the case of alarm at Halifax. I am more and more convinced that cowardice is the mother of cruelty. Were I to draw the picture of cruelty, I would paint him with a feminine faintness. The free and horrible use of the halter in London, is from fear. I was brought up, all my life, even until I left my father's house, and came off without calculation, or reflection on this wild adventure in a privateer, in the opinion that the English were an humane, generous, and magnanimous people, and that none but Turks, Frenchmen, and Algerines, were cruel; but my experience for three years past has corrected my false notions of this proud nation. If they do not impale men as the Algerines and Turks do, or roast a man as the Indians do, and as the Inquisitors do, they will leave him to starve, and linger out his miserable days in the hole of a ship, or in a prison, where the blessed air is changed into a poison, and where the articles given him to eat are far worse in quality than the swill with which the American farmer feeds his hogs. How can an officer, how can any man, holding in society the rank of a gentleman, sit down to his meal in his cabin, when he has a hundred of his fellow creatures, some of them brought up with delicacy and refinement, and with the feelings of gentlemen: I say, how can he sit composedly down to his dinner, while men, as good as himself, are suffering for want of food. There is in this conduct either a bold cruelty, or a stupidity and want of reflection, that does no honour to that officer, or to those who gave him his command.

It happened when some of us were allowed in our turn to be on deck, that we would lay hold and pull or belay a rope when needed. When we arrived at Portsmouth, which was the 5th of October, we were visited by the health officer; and when we again weighed anchor to go to the quarantine ground, the boatswain's mate came to tell us that it was the captain's order that we should tumble up and assist at the capstan. Accordingly three or four went to assist; but one of our veteran tars bid him go and tell his captain that hunger and labour were not friends, and never would go together; and that prisoners who subsisted three days in a week on pea-water, could only give him pea-water assistance. This speech raised the temper of the officer of the deck, who sent down some marines, who drove us all up. There was among us a Dutchman, who was very forward in complying with the officers' request; but being awkward and careless withall, he suffered himself to be jambed between the end of the capstan-bar and the side of the ship, which hurt him badly. Some of the prisoners collected round their wounded companion, when the officer of the deck ordered them to take the d—d blunderheaded fellow below, and let some American take his place; but after this expression of brutality towards the poor jambed up Dutchman, not a man would go near the capstan, so one of their own crew filled up the vacancy made by the wounded Hollander.

A Mr. S–, who had some office of distinction in Newfoundland, if I mistake not he was the first in command of that dreary island. This gentleman, who I think they called general Smith, was passenger on board the Regulus. One day when I was upon deck, he asked me how many of the hundred prisoners could read and write. I told him that it was a rare thing to find a person, male or female, in New England, who could not write as well as read. Then, said he, New England must be covered with charity schools.—I replied, that we had no charity schools, or very few; at which he looked as if he thought I had uttered an absurdity. I then related in a few words our school system. I told him, that the primary condition or stipulation in the incorporation of every town in Massachusetts, and which was a "sine qua non" of every town, was a reserve of land, and a bond to maintain a school or schools, according to the number of inhabitants; that the teachers were supported by a tax, in the same way as we supported our clergy; that such schools were opened to every child, from the children of the first magistrate down to the children of the constable; and that there was no distinction, promotion or favour, but what arose from talent, industry and good behaviour. I told him that the children of the poorest people, generally went to school in the winter, while in the spring and summer they assisted their parents.

He walked about musing awhile, and then turning back, asked me if the clergy did not devote much of their time to the instruction of our youth—very seldom, sir—our young students of divinity, and theological candidates very often instruct youth; but when a gentleman is once ordained and settled as a parish minister, he never or very rarely keeps a school. At which the general appeared surprised. I added that sometimes episcopal clergymen kept a school, but never the presbyterian, or congregational ministers. He asked why the latter could not keep school as well as the former; I told him, because they were expected to write their own sermons, at which he laughed. Besides, parochial visits consume much of their time, and when a congregation have stipulated with a minister to fill the pulpit, and preach two sermons a week, visit the sick and attend funerals, they think he can have not too much time for composing sermons. They moreover consider it derogatory to the honor of his flock to be obliged to keep a school—when I told him that our clergymen bent all their force to instructing youth in morality and religion, he said, then they attempt to raise a structure before they lay a foundation for it. He seemed very strenuous that our priests should be employed in the education of youth, as he conceived that hired school masters had not the pious zeal that the priest would have. I suspect said General S. that your ministers are too proud and too lazy. I perceived his idea was, that a school master, hired to undergo the drudgery of teaching boys, was too much of an hireling to fill up to the full the important duties of a teacher; but he judged of them by the numerous Scotch school masters here and there in Canada, Nova Scotia, the West India islands and every where else, teaching for money merely. He did not know that our New England school masters were men of character, and consequence. Some of our very first men in these United States, have been teachers of youth. At this present time some of the sons of some of the first men in Massachusetts are village school masters; that is, they keep a school in the winter vacations of the University; and some of them for the first year after leaving college.

I was much pleased with the general; and have since learnt, that he was a very worthy and benevolent man; and that he had paid great attention to the education of youth in Newfoundland; and that it was, in a degree, his ruling passion.2 I wish I had then known as much of our school system, and of our system of public education at our Universities, as I do now; for I might have gratified his benevolent disposition by the recital. The ignorance of English gentlemen of the people of America, and of their education, is indeed surprising as well as mortifying. By their treatment of us, it is evident they consider us a sort of white savages, with minds as uncultivated, and dispositions as ferocious as their own allies, with their tomahawks and scalping knives. After conversing with this worthy Englishman, about the education of the common people in America, I could not but say to myself, little do you, good sir, and your haughty, and unfeeling captain imagine, that there are those among the hundred miserable men whom you keep confined in the hold of your ship, like so many Gallipago turtles, and who you allow to suffer for want of sufficient food; little do you think that there are among them those who have sufficient learning to lay the whole story of their sufferings before the American and English people; little do you imagine that the inhumane treatment of men every way as good as yourselves, is now recording, and will in due time be displayed to your mortification.

Our sailors, though half starved, confined and broken down by harsh treatment, always kept up the genuine Yankee character, which is that of being grateful and tractable by kind usage, but stern, inflexible and resentful at harsh treatment. One morning as the general and the captain of the Regulus were walking as usual on the quarter deck, one of our Yankee boys passed along the galley with his kid of "burgoo." He rested it on the edge of the hatch-way, while he was adjusting the rope ladder to descend with his "swill." The thing attracted the attention of the general, who asked the man, how many of his comrades eat of that quantity for their breakfast? "Six Sir," said the man, "but it is fit food only for hogs." This answer affronted the captain, who asked the man, in an angry tone, "what part of America he came from?" "near to Bunker Hill, Sir—if you ever heard of that place." They looked at each other and smiled, turned about and continued their walk. This is what the English call impudence. Give it what name you please, it is that something which will, one day, wrest the trident from the hands of Britannia, and place it with those who have more humanity, and more force of muscle, if not more cultivated powers of mind. There was a marine in the Regulus, who had been wounded on board the Shannon in the battle with the Chesapeake, who had a great antipathy to the Americans, and was continually casting reflections on the Americans generally. He one day got into a high dispute with one of our men, which ended in blows. This man had served on board the Constitution, when she captured the Guerriere and afterwards the Java. After the two wranglers were separated, the marine complained to his officer, that he had been abused by one of the American prisoners, and it reaching the captain's ears, he ordered the American on the quarter deck, and inquired into the cause of the quarrel. When he had heard it all, he called the American sailor a d—d coward for striking a wounded man. "I am no coward, Sir," said the high spirited Yankee; "I was captain of a gun on board the Constitution when she captured the Guerriere, and afterwards when she took the Java. Had I been a coward I should not have been there." The captain called him an insolent scoundrel, and ordered him to his hole again. What the British naval commanders call insolence, is no more than the undaunted expression of their natural and habitual independence. When a British sailor is called by his captain, in an angry tone, on to the quarter-deck, he turns pale and trembles, like a thief before a country justice; but not so the American; he, if he be innocent, speaks his mind with a firm tone and steady countenance; and if he feels himself insulted, he is not afraid to deal in sarcasm. In the instances just mentioned, Jonathan knew full well that the very name of Bunker Hill, the Guerriere, and the Java, was a deep mortification to John Bull. Actuated by this sort of feeling, the steady Romans shook the world.

From this digression, let us return, and resume our Journal. We arrived off Portsmouth the fifth of October, 1813; and were visited by the health officer, and ordered to the Mother-bank, opposite that place, where vessels ride out their quarantine. The next day the ship was fumigated, and every exertion made by the officers to put her in a condition for inspection by the health-officer. Letters were fumigated by vinegar, or nitrous acid, before they were allowed to go out of the ship. Their attention was next turned to us, miserable prisoners. We were ordered to wash, and put on clean shirts. Being informed that many of us had not a second shirt to put on, the captain took down the names of such destitute men, but never supplied them with a single rag.

The prisoners were now as anxious to go on shore, and to know the extent of their misery, as the captain of the Regulous was to get rid of us. The most of us, therefore, joined heartily in the task of cleansing the ship, and in white-washing the lower deck, or the place we occupied. Some, either through laziness or resentment, refused to do any thing about it; but the rest of us said, that it was always customary in America, when we left a house, or a room we hired, to leave it clean, and it was ever deemed disreputable to leave an apartment dirty. The officers of the ship tried to make them, and began to threaten them, but they persisted in their refusal, and every attempt to force them was fruitless. I do not myself wonder that the British officers, so used to prompt and even servile obedience of their own men, were ready to knock some of our obstinate, saucy fellows, on the head. This brings to my mind the concise but just observation of an English traveller through the United States of America. After saying that the inhabitants south of the Hudson were a mixed race of English, Irish, Scotch, Dutch, Germans and Swedes, among whom you could observe no precise national character; he adds, "but as to New-England, they are all true English; and there you see one uniform trait of national manners, habits and dispositions.—The people are hardy, industrious, humane, obliging, obstinate and brave. By kind and courteous usage, mixed with flattery, you can lead them, like so many children, almost as you please;" but, he adds, "the devil from h—l, with fire in one hand, and faggots in the other, cannot drive them." Neither Cæsar, nor Tacitus ever drew a more true and concise character of the Gauls, or Germans, than this. Here is seen the transplanted Englishman, enjoying "Indian freedom," and therefore a little wilder than in his native soil of Albion; and yet it is surprising that a people, whose ancestors left England less than a century and a half ago, should be so little known to the present court and administration of Great Britain. Even the revolutionary war was not sufficient to teach John Bull, that his descendants had improved by transplantation, in all those qualities for which stuffy John most values himself. The present race of Englishmen are puffed up, and blinded by what they have been, while their descendants in America are proud of what they are, and what they know they shall be.

After the ship had been cleansed, fumigated and partially white-washed, so as to be fit for the eye and nose of the health officer, she was examined by him, and reported free from contagion! Now I conceive this line of conduct not very reputable to the parties concerned. When we arrived off Portsmouth, our ship was filthy, and I believe contagious; we miserable prisoners, were encrusted with the nastiness common to such a place, as that into which we had been inhumanly crowded. It was the duty of the health officers and the surgeon of the Regulus, to have reported her condition when she first anchored; and not to have cleaned her up, and altered her condition for inspection. In the American service the captain, surgeon and health officer would have all been cashiered for such a dereliction of honour and duty. This is the way that the British board of admiralty, the transport board, the parliament, and the people are deceived, and their nation disgraced; and this corruption, which more or less pervades the whole transport service, will enervate and debase their boasted navy. We cannot suppose that the British board of admiralty, or the transport board would justify the cruel system of starvation practised on the brave Americans who were taken in Canada, and conveyed in their floating dungeons down the river St. Lawrence to Halifax. Some of these captains of transports deserve to be hanged for their barbarity to our men; and for the eternal hatred they have occasioned towards their own government in the hearts of the surviving Americans. We hope, for the honor of that country whence we derived our laws and sacred institutions, that this Journal will be read in England.

The Regulus was then removed to the anchoring place destined for men of war; and the same night, we were taken out, and put on board the Malabar store ship, where we found one hundred and fifty of our countrymen in her hold, with no other bed to sleep on but the stone ballast. Here were two hundred and fifty men, emaciated by a system of starvation cooped up in a small space, with only an aperture of about two feet square to admit the air, and with ballast stones for our beds! Although in harbor, we were not supplied with sufficient water to quench our thirst, nor with sufficient light to see our food, or each other, nor of sufficient air to breathe; and what aggravated the whole, was the stench of the place, owing to a diarrhœa with which several were affected. Our situation was indeed deplorable. Imagine yourself, Christian reader! two hundred and fifty men crammed into a place too small to contain one hundred with comfort, stifling for want of air, pushing and crowding each other, and exerting all their little remaining strength to push forward to the grated hatch-way to respire a little fresh air. The strongest obtained their wish, while the weakest were pushed back, and sometimes trampled under foot.

Out stretch'd he lies, and as he pants for breath,Receives at every gasp new draughts of death.Tasso.

God of mercy, cried I, in my agony of distress, is this a sample of the English humanity we have heard and read so much of from our school boy years to manhood? If they be a merciful nation, they belong to that class of nations "whose tender mercies are cruelty."

Representations were repeatedly made to the captain of the Malabar, of our distressed situation, as suffering extremely by heat and stagnant air; for only two of us were allowed to come upon deck at a time; but he answered that he had given orders for our safe treatment, and safe keeping; and he was determined not to lose his ship by too much lenity. In a word, we found the fellow's heart to be as hard as the bed we slept on. Soon after, however, our situation became so dangerous and alarming, that one of the marine corps informed the captain that if he wished to preserve us alive, he must speedily give us more air. If this did not move his compassion, it alarmed his fears; and he then gave orders to remove the after hatch, and iron bars fixed in its place, in order to prevent us from forcing our way up, and throwing him into the sea, a punishment he richly deserved. This alteration rendered the condition of our "black hole," more tolerable; it was nevertheless a very loathsome dungeon;—for our poor fellows were not allowed to go upon deck to relieve the calls of nature, but were compelled to appropriate one part of our residence to this dirty purpose. This, as may be supposed, rendered our confinement doubly disgusting, as well as unwholesome.

I do not recollect the name of the captain of the Malabar, and it may be as well that I do not; I only know that he was a Scotchman. It may be considered by some as illiberal to deal in national reflections, I nevertheless cannot help remarking that I have received more ill-treatment from men of that nation than from individuals of any other; and this is the general impression of my countrymen. The poet tell us, that

"Cowards are cruel, but the braveLove mercy, and delight to save."3

The Scotch are brave soldiers, but we, Americans, have found them to be the most hard hearted and cruel people we have ever yet met with. Our soldiers as well as sailors make the same complaint, insomuch, that, "cruel as a Scotchman," has become a proverb in the United States.—The Scotch officers have been remarked for treating our officers, when in their power, with insolence, and expressions of contempt; more so than the English. It is said that a Scotch officer, who superintends the horrid whippings so common in British camps, is commonly observed to be more hard hearted than an English one. It is certain that they are generally preferred as negro-drivers in the West-India islands. It has been uniformly remarked that those Scotchmen who are settled on the Canada frontiers are remarkable for their bitterness towards our men in captivity.