Dartmoor Prison

“ Next come “The Prisoners’ Memoirs, or Dartmoor Prison; containing a Complete and Impartial History of the entire captivity of the Americans in England, from the commencement of the late War between the United States and Great Britain, until all Prisoners were released by the treaty of Ghent. Also a particular detail of all the occurrences relative to that Horrid Massacre at Dartmoor, on the fatal evening of the 6th April, 1815. The whole carefully compiled from the Journal of Charles Andrews, a Prisoner in England from the commencement of the War, until the release of all the Prisoners.” ”

“ The prison at Dartmoor is situated on the east side of one of the highest and most barren mountains in England, and is surrounded on all sides, as far as the eye can see, by the gloomy features of a black moor, uncultivated and uninhabited, except by one or two miserable cottages, just discernible in an eastern view, the tenants of which live by cutting turf on the moor, and selling it at the prison. The place is deprived of every thing that is pleasant or agreeable, and is productive of nothing but human woe and misery. ”

“ Thus we marched, surrounded by a strong guard, through a heavy rain, and over a bad road, with only our usual and scanty allowance of bread and fish. We were allowed to stop only once during the march of seventeen miles.
We arrived at Dartmoor late in the after part of the day, and found the ground covered with snow. Nothing could form a more dreary prospect than that which now presented itself to our hopeless view. Death itself, with the hopes of an hereafter, seemed less terrible than this gloomy prison. ”

“ A little by-road takes us quickly to the wild spot where neolithic man built himself this dwelling, with the object, doubtless, of keeping an eye upon his neighbours rather than that of enjoying the view. Whatever his motive he chose well. He saw this splendid panorama—a pageant of green and purple and indescribable blue. One thing only he did not see: the tragic thing that gleams so suddenly and whitely in the far distance, when a sunbeam chances to fall upon it—Dartmoor Prison. ”

“ When the cessation of transportation beyond the seas brought about a complete change in the British methods of secondary punishment, and it was essential to provide penal establishments at home, Dartmoor was converted into a convict prison appropriated at first to invalids, but eventually to the able bodied; and felon labour was applied in large quantities to the reclamation of the barren moorland and its conversion into productive farms. It was an ideal penal settlement; at first a wild, barbarous place remote from the busy haunts of men, yet not too far for effective control and supervision. ”

“ It is said, “If a person be under circumstances of actual force and constraint, through a well-grounded apprehension of injury to his life or person, this fear, or compulsion, will excuse his even joining with either rebels or enemies in the kingdom, provided he leaves them whenever he hath a safe opportunity.”
Now to return to Dartmoor. At a time when the prisoners had despaired of any relief, and began to reconcile themselves to their hard fate, they were very agreeably surprised to hear that Mr. Reuben G. Beasley had condescended to visit them, and then waited at the gate for admittance. ”

“ In the centre of its wide waste of barren hills, huge granite outcroppings and swampy valleys, the gloomy prison of Dartmoor stood wrapped in mist one dismal morning in the March following the Royalist outbreak. Its two centuries of unloved existence in the midst of a wild land and fitful climate had seared every wall-tower and gateway with lines and patches of decay and discoloration. ”

“ These men would play away every thing they possessed beyond the clothes to keep them decent. They have been known to game away a month's provision; and when they had lost it, would shirk and steal for a month after for their subsistence. A man with some money in his pocket might live pretty well through the day in Dartmoor Prison; there being shops and stalls where every little article could be obtained; but added to this we had a good and constant market; and the bread and meat supplied by government were not bad; and as good I presume as that given to British prisoners by our own government ”

“ Not long after the receipt of this letter, one hundred and fifty of our countrymen were sent off, by water, to this Dartmoor Prison; but the measles appearing among them, they were stopped at the Nore, which is at the entrance of the Thames. They are every day drafting more, which are destined for the dismal prison house. We are all struck with horror at the idea of our removal from our ships in the river Medway, which runs through a beautiful country. ”

“ It is on coming to the consideration of the life of the captives in their prison that the want is felt of any contemporary account written by one of themselves; such accounts are extant for the historian of the Dartmoor Prison, but for Norman Cross the only sources from which a description of the prison life can be given, are the meagre information gleaned from the very few persons who had seen the prison and the prisoners, and who were still alive when the writer commenced his inquiries; private letters written during the period of the Depot’s existence ”

“ There were distinct grades among the Dartmoor prisoners. First came ‘Les Lords’—‘broke parole’ officers, and people with money. Next came ‘Les Laboureurs’, the clever, industrious men who not only lived comfortably by the sale of the articles they manufactured, but saved money so that some of them left the prison at the Declaration of Peace financially very much better off than when they came. These were the ‘respectable prisoners’. After the labourers came the ‘Indifférents’—loafers and idlers, but not mischief-makers or harm-workers ”

“ Violent deaths among Dartmoor prisoners, whether from suicide or duel or murder, were so frequent, even in the earliest years of the prison, that in 1810 the coroner of this division of the county complained, praying that on account of the large numbers of inquests held—greater, he said, since the opening of the prison than during the preceding fourteen years—the ordinary allowance to jurors of 8d. per man be increased to 1s. ”

“ At the close of the War of 1812-14 there were about six thousand prisoners there, twenty-five hundred of them impressed American seamen who had refused to fight against their country, having been forced into the British Navy and being still there at the beginning of the struggle. Some of the poor fellows, though, had been in Dartmoor Prison ten or eleven years. Think what an intense longing they must have felt for home and their own dear native land! ”

“ I have been disposed to allow that the conduct of our countrymen, while on board the prison ships, and at Dartmoor, was, at times, provoking to the British officers set over them; but never malignant, much less, bloody. It could be always traced to a spirit of fun and frolic, which our people indulge in beyond all others in the world ”

“ He became a sailor, went to Europe several times in that capacity, and when the war broke out he shipped as such on board the privateer Lawrence. It was taken by the British, and he was thrown into Dartmoor Prison, and saw the massacre there in 1815."
"Oh, what was that, grandma?" asked Ned, [46] in tones of excitement. "I didn't think I ever heard about it."
"Lossing tells us," replied his grandmother, "that Dartmoor was a depot for prisoners in England; that it was situated in a desolate region, was built in 1809 for a place in which to confine French prisoners. ”

“ Dartmoor Prison was built specially for the confinement of prisoners of war, of whom England had great numbers during her troubles with France, growing out of the French Revolution and the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was finished in 1806, and at one time contained no fewer than eleven thousand French prisoners. It is about one thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea at Plymouth, and that is why the road from Plymouth to Princetown is so much up-hill. An average of one hundred feet to the mile or thereabouts is a pretty steep ascent. ”

“ When nine years later, in 1805, fresh accommodation for the ever-increasing number of prisoners flowing into Great Britain was necessary, and Dartmoor was selected as the site for a new prison, granite was the material adopted for its construction. The stone was obtainable on the spot, while the price of timber was prohibitive, in consequence of the blockading of the Prussian ports. [12] p. 13The granite prison at Dartmoor, commenced in 1805, received its first batch of prisoners in May 1809. ”

“ It was equally abhorrent to the principles of humanity, and only sanctioned by British governmental agents, and those petty Nations of Savages, whose known usages of warfare have hitherto kept them beyond the pale of national law. The history of modern European wars can furnish no parallel to this part of the history of Dartmoor. But when we arrive at the slaughter of prisoners on the 6th of April, the climax of barbarity is complete, and the mind is sated with the contemplation of principles as shocking to humanity as the consequences are degrading to the character of the English nation. ”

“ August 30th.—Drafts continue to be made from this ship to be sent off to Dartmoor Prison. There are but few of us remaining, and we are every day in expectation of removal. All go off with evident reluctance, from an apprehension that the change will be for the worse. It is the "untried scene," that fills us with anxiety. We are more disposed to bear our present ills, "than fly to others which we know not of." ”

“ 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. 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 American prisoners. Written by himself. ”

“ There are some in this dismal prison, who have been used all their lives, not to conveniences only, but to delicacies; who are obliged to submit to the disagreeables of this uncivilized mode of incarcerating brave men, for one of the first of Grecian, Roman, English and American virtues, the love of country, or patriotism. These unfortunate men, with minds far elevated beyond the officers who are placed here to guard, and to torment them, submit to their confinement with a better grace than one could have expected. ”

“ In size Princetown is only a village, with a population permanently increased by the presence of about a thousand convicts and their warders; and it may be feared that a majority of visitors to the place, reaching it by train from Yelverton, are drawn by a curiosity to see the prison. They are rewarded by little but a sight of the grim bare walls. Lovers of the moor have never looked with favour either at the prison or at the tortuous little railway line that climbs to it, however much this line may be admired as a feat of engineering ”

“ Abel Kingsley, vaguely described in the visitors' book of the Princetown Arms as of Memphis University, U.S.A., was sitting on the cairn hill above the great prison that held Julius Craig.
To the far horizon there stretched the melancholy moors, deserted wastes of rushy marshes and stunted heather, broken here and there by outcrops of granite, that crowned the rolling ground like the ruins of a hundred feudal castles. For Dartmoor is a huge granite tableland, and on its barren surface no corn will grow nor tree flourish. ”

“ Her men were imprisoned for the rest of the war period, some of them being sent to the horrible Dartmoor prison of England, of which history says that the dreadful tales of suffering and death in the “black hole” and massacre by the guards are all too truthful, but the “Leo’s” men were not there when the prison was at its very worst.
The “George Little” was a smart hermaphrodite brig, mounting ten guns and a “chaser,” and was owned and fitted at Boston. Her commander was Captain Nathaniel Spooner; first lieutenant, Captain Samuel Doten ”

“ Sir—I have the honor to receive your letter of the 3d of August, communicating a proposition of your government to make provision for the widows and families of the sufferers in the much to be lamented occurrence at Dartmoor.
It is painful to touch on this unfortunate event, from the deep distress it has caused to the whole American people. This repugnance is increased by the consideration that our governments, though penetrated with regret, do not agree in sentiment, respecting the conduct of the parties engaged in it. ”

“ Thus, during the six years and seven months of Dartmoor’s existence as a war-prison, there were 1,455 deaths, which, taking the average number of prisoners as 5,600, works out at about four per cent., but the annual average was not more than two and a quarter per cent., except in the above-quoted years. The average mortality on the prison ships was slightly higher, working out all round at about three per cent., but here again epidemics made the percentages of particular years jump, as at Portsmouth in 1812, when the average of deaths rose to about four per cent. ”

“ There, on April 6, 1815, occurred the infamous massacre of American prisoners, shot down by their guards because of an imaginary plot to break jail. Dartmoor is the worst of all the English prisons. Only a man of the strongest constitution can hope to survive the rigorous climate and unremitting hard labor of the dreary prison, planted in the middle of the bleak Devonshire moor. Two of the Irish convicts died of the hardships and cruelties there endured by them. McCarthy and Chambers underwent twelve years of torture in this and other prisons. ”