Part 11

The summary of the evidence I shall give presently; but I must here digress a little to give some circumstances that intervened betwixt the taking of the depositions, and the verdict of the jury.

This morning an order arrived for the discharge of thirty-four prisoners, who had applied to be released to man ships in different parts of Europe.

During the eighth and ninth, the prisoners made every inquiry in their power to learn whether any were missing, who were not included among the dead, wounded, or discharged; but nothing satisfactory could be obtained, but only a report that after the prisons were closed, Capt. Shortland had secretly buried some of the most mangled bodies, before Dr. Magrath entered, as he is a man of integrity, feeling, candor, firmness, and unshaken veracity, as well as genius and skill, that no favor or affection could swerve from the truth. Shortland would therefore endeavor to conceal as much as possible from him, as whatever came within his knowledge, came out without fear or reward, and was much against the conduct of Capt. Shortland. On the morning of the seventh, as before mentioned, we ascertained by the testimony of those persons whose names are mentioned in the certificate to this work, the particulars of the killed and wounded, whose names have been already mentioned, the number of which and their situation, were as follows:

Seven were killed dead in the yards, and in the prisons. Six suffered amputation of a leg or an arm. _Thirty-eight_ dangerously wounded and many supposed to be mortal by the surgeon of the depot. _Twelve_ slightly wounded. The total amount of killed and wounded _sixty-three_. Among these were many mangled in the most horrid manner, having received five, six, and seven wounds apiece from the bayonet. Hundreds of the prisoners very narrowly escaped, having received several shots through the hats and clothes.

We have just discovered that the soldiers here at present are the Somersetshire militia; and the garrison consists of fifteen hundred soldiers of different military classes.

On the evening of the ninth, the inquest, consisting of twelve peasants, dependants of Capt. Shortland, delivered in this most extraordinary and unjust verdict, of Justifiable Homicide; such a verdict astonished every person, who was not _particeps criminis_. This verdict seems to have been given against evidence; a summary of which on both sides I shall now proceed to give the reader, that he may judge for himself. It appeared from the different witnesses before mentioned, that the hole made in the wall was unknown to more than three-fourths of the prisoners confined in the yard of No. 5 and 7, where the hole was made, and that no combination had ever been entered into by any of the prisoners to escape; it was also proved that the prisoners confined in the yards of No. 1, 3 & 4, were totally ignorant of there being any hole in the wall. It was proved that the gates were broken open by a man in the state of intoxication, and unknown to the prisoners, and that when broken open it was in the power of the sentry to have taken the offender and confined him without any resistance of the prisoners. It was also proved that they came running to the gate out of curiosity, to learn the occasion of the alarm bells ringing; that the few persons (who were not above fifty,) flocked into the square, were carried out of the gates by the numbers pressing in the rear to gratify their curiosity; that no stones or clubs were thrown while they were in this situation; that they all immediately retired into the yards of their respective prisons, and shut the gates after them; that Capt. Shortland took the immediate command of the soldiers, and ordered them to fire on the prisoners; that on firing the prisoners made all possible exertion to gain the inside of the prison; but some fell before they could reach it; that the soldiers pursued and fired into the prisons and killed two within the prison; that the soldiers on the ramparts singled out the prisoners, and fired and killed them, as they were going into the prisons; that after all the prisoners had got in, except some few, being frightened, and not able to get into the prisons, ran for refuge close to the walls, and were fired upon singly, and either killed or wounded by several soldiers firing at one. That an officer of low rank assisted under the command of Capt. Shortland, in killing a boy, not over thirteen years old! that a prisoner applied to Capt. Shortland to forbear, and stop the horrid massacre, as the prisoners were retiring as fast as possible, and that Capt. Shortland answered, “retire, you damned rascal, I’ll hear to nothing.” It was proved that the turnkeys, contrary to the invariable custom, had been in and locked all the doors of each prison, except one; there being four doors to each prison, they had ever before been left open, till a horn was sounded, and the turnkeys cried “turn in, turn in;” but that night no horn was sounded, nor was there any cry to turn in, but the doors secretly locked, which much surprised the few that happened to see the doors locked, but did not suspect any mischief was about to be done; that this was done some time before the usual hour for turning in. Also, that Capt. Shortland actually took hold of a musket with his own hands in conjunction with a soldier, and fired the first gun. That the soldier-officers were unwilling to give any orders to the soldiers, or take any active part in the proceedings.

From the summary of the evidence above given, on the part of the prisoners, it must appear evident to every impartial reader, that Capt. Shortland made the attack with malice prepense. But to give the public the fairest opportunity to judge, I shall give a summary of the evidence on the part of Capt. Shortland, which came all from the mouth of witnesses _particeps criminis_, and acting with him. Those consisted of clerks, turnkeys, and soldiers, who had been the very instruments of the massacre. They deposed and said, that the prisoners were in a state of mutiny, and that great numbers had threatened to escape by forcing through the walls, and that the hole in the wall was big enough for a man to pass through; that the lock on the gate was broken by some prisoner, and that stones were thrown while the prisoners were at the gate, and also clubs and pieces of iron thrown at the guards by the prisoners while there; that great numbers had got into the square, and that they did mean to make their escape. Nothing material could be further drawn from these witnesses.

In the evening of this day, the bodies of our murdered countrymen were buried behind the prison walls in the same manner as before the peace, without form or ceremony, and no prisoner permitted to attend to see the last sad office, which one friend can perform for another in giving the grave its due. O! Britannia, thy boast is gone, thy pride is lost; humanity is fled from thy degenerate sons, and a safer asylum in the bosom of the savage tribes is found. Deny the dead their sacred due!

Thou ingrate race, is this the reward due to men who have labored many years thy faithful servant, and now, after having dragged out a painful imprisonment for two years, and the moment the hope of returning had rekindled the sparks of life, must be massacred in a most barbarous manner, and denied the right of the grave?

I must here relate one instance which occurred a few years ago, and which goes very far to show the inhumanity of those who have had the command of this depot heretofore. In a manuscript which was left here by the French prisoners, which I was this evening perusing, I find the following remarkable circumstance of cruelty related, which took place during their confinement.

Captain Cotgrave being agent, and Dr. Decker head surgeon of the hospital, in December, one thousand eight hundred and nine, a most malignant and contagious disease, bearing the most frightful and mortal symptoms, broke out among the French prisoners, which, in the short space of one month, carried off more than eight hundred.

This unfeeling man, Dr. Decker, caused the coffins to be brought into the rooms of the hospital to receive the bodies: where they often remained several days in readiness to receive the unhappy man fast approaching the end of all his sufferings.

It is said in the manuscript, that this worse than barbarian, would gaze with the greatest satisfaction on the surrounding victims, that he might discover from the very inmost recesses of the heart, what effect the appearance of these coffins had on their exhausted spirits.

However unfeeling this might be, yet their lot was envied by hundreds of their countrymen, who were left to perish in the prison without any assistance, without a friend, and in want of everything; and would not be received into the Hospital by this unfeeling man.

Their extreme sufferings would have moved the heart even of a cannibal, and it is a solitary instance of cruelty, that any one belonging to a civilized nation could rejoice at such a mournful spectacle, and exult over their fellow-beings in the agonies of death, as did this man often, in saying the more deaths the fewer enemies.

Another circumstance is related in the same manuscript, in which Capt. Isaac Cotgrave was the principal actor.

On the eighth of October, one thousand eight hundred and nine, the turnkeys, by mistake, had left one of the prison doors unlocked, which being discovered by some of the prisoners, they determined, if possible, to effect an escape; they got into the yard but, unfortunately, were discovered the very moment they came out, by one of the sentries, who gave the alarm, and instantly a volley of sixty muskets was discharged at them; numbers were wounded, but none killed; they then hastily retired into the prison.

Capt. Cotgrave, the agent, then entered the yard at the head of a large body of troops, and after searching the yard in every direction, and discovering nobody he was retiring, when they discovered a man creeping along the wall; the blood-thirsty monsters instantly fell upon the unhappy victim, and would neither listen to his cries nor prayers, but before he could make himself known to them, several musket-balls had pierced his vital parts, and laid him lifeless on the ground; but they were not content with this; they ran up to him, and ran over and over his lifeless corpse, stabbing it with their bayonets in many places; after having satiated their ferocity, on inspecting the body, they found it to be one of their own men, whom the darkness of the night had prevented them from distinguishing.

In memory of this horrid act, the French prisoners raised a monument on the very spot where it was committed; but the keepers of the prison had it destroyed the same day, for it was a monument of their cruelty.

THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF PRISONERS.

We, the undersigned, being each severally sworn on the holy evangelists of the Almighty God, for the investigation of the circumstances attending the late horrid massacre, and having heard the depositions of a great number of witnesses, from our own personal knowledge, and from the depositions given in as aforesaid,

REPORT AS FOLLOWS:

That on the 6th of April, about six o’clock in the evening, when the prisoners were all quiet in their respective yards, it being about the usual time of turning in for the night, and the greater part of the prisoners being then in the prisons, the alarm bell was rung, and many of the prisoners ran up to the Market-square to learn the occasion of the alarm. There were then drawn up in the Square several hundred soldiers, with Captain Shortland [the Agent] at their head; it was likewise observed, at the same time, that additional numbers of soldiers were posting themselves on the walls round the prison yards. One of them observed to the prisoners, that they had better go into the prisons, for they would be charged upon directly. This, of course, occasioned considerable alarm among them. In this moment of uncertainty, they were running in different directions, inquiring the cause of the alarm--some toward their respective prisons, and some toward the Market-square. When about one hundred were collected in the Square, Captain Shortland ordered the soldiers to charge upon them, which order the soldiers were reluctant in obeying, as the prisoners were using no violence; but on the order being repeated, they made a charge, and the prisoners retreated out of the Square into the prison-yards, and shut the gates after them. Captain Shortland himself opened the gates, and ordered the soldiers to fire in among the prisoners, who were all retreating in different directions toward their respective prisons. It appears there was some hesitation in the minds of the officers, whether or not it was proper to fire upon the prisoners in that situation; on which Shortland seized a musket out of the hands of a soldier, which he fired. Immediately after, the fire became general, and many of the prisoners were either killed or wounded. The remainder were endeavoring to get into the prisons, when going towards the lower doors, the soldiers on the walls commenced firing on them from that quarter, which killed some and wounded others. After much difficulty, [all the doors being closed in the entrance, but one in each prison] the survivors succeeded in gaining the prisons; immediately after which, parties of soldiers came to the doors of Nos. 3 and 4 prisons, and fired several vollies into them through the windows and doors, which killed one man in each prison, and severely wounded others.

It likewise appears, that the preceding butchery was followed up with a disposition of peculiar inveteracy and barbarity.

One man, who was severely wounded in No. 7 prison-yard, and being unable to make his way to the prison, was come up with by the soldiers, whom he implored for mercy, but in vain; five of the hardened wretches immediately levelled their pieces at him, and shot him dead on the spot.--The soldiers who were posted on the walls, manifested equal cruelty, by keeping up a constant fire on every prisoner they could see in the yards endeavoring to get into the prison, when their numbers were very few, and when not the least shadow of resistance could be made or expected. Several of them had got into No. 6 prison cook-house, which was pointed out by the soldiers on the walls, to those who were marching in from the Square; they immediately went up and fired into the same, which wounded several; one of the prisoners ran out with the intention of gaining his prison, but was killed before he reached the door.

On an impartial consideration of the circumstances of the case, we are induced to believe that it was a premeditated scheme in the mind of Captain Shortland, for reasons which we will now proceed to give--as an illucidation of its origin, we will recur back to an event which happened some days previous. Captain Shortland was, at the time, absent at Plymouth, but before going, he ordered the contractor or his clerk to serve out one pound of indifferent hard bread, instead of one pound and a half of soft bread, their usual allowance--this the prisoners refused to receive--they waited all day in expectation of their usual allowance being served out; but at senset, finding this would not be the case, burst open the lower gates, and went up to the store, demanding to have their bread.

The officers of the garrison, on being alarmed, and informed of their proceedings, observed, that it was no more than right the prisoners should have their usual allowance, and strongly reprobated the conduct of Captain Shortland in withholding it from them. They were accordingly served with their bread, and quietly returned to their prison. This circumstance, with the censures that were thrown on his conduct, reached the ears of Shortland on his return home, and he must then have determined on the diabolical plan of seizing the first slight pretext to turn in the military, to butcher the prisoners for the gratification of his malice and revenge. It unfortunately happened, that in the afternoon of the 6th of April, some boys who were playing ball in No. 7 yard, knocked their ball over into the barrack-yard, and on the sentry in that yard refusing to throw it back to them, they picked a hole in the wall to get in after it.

This afforded Shortland his wished-for pretext, and he took his measures accordingly; he had all the garrison drawn up in the military walk, additional numbers posted on the walls, and every thing ready prepared before the alarm bell was rung; this, he naturally concluded, would draw the attention of a great number of prisoners towards the gates, to learn the cause of the alarm, while the turnkeys were despatched into the yards to lock all the doors but one of each prison, to prevent the prisoners retreating out of the way before he had sufficiently wreaked his vengeance.

What adds peculiar weight to the belief of its being a premeditated, determined massacre, are,

_First._--The sanguinary disposition manifested on every occasion by Shortland, he having, prior to this time, ordered the soldiers to fire into the prisons, through the prison windows, upon unarmed prisoners asleep in their hammocks, on account of a light being seen in the prisons; which barbarous act was repeated several nights successively. That murder was not then committed, was owing to an over-ruling Providence alone; for the balls were picked up in the prison, where they passed through the hammocks of men then asleep in them. He having also ordered the soldiers to fire upon the prisoners in the yard of No. 7 prison, because they would not deliver up to him a man who had escaped from the _cachot_, which order the commanding officer of the soldiers refused to obey; and generally, he having seized on every slight pretext to injure the prisoners, by stopping their marketing for ten days repeatedly, and once a third part of their provisions for the same length of time.

_Secondly._--He having been heard to say, when the boys had picked the hole in the wall, and some time before the alarm bell rung, while all the prisoners were quiet as usual in their respective yards, “_I’ll fix the damn’d rascals directly_.”

_Thirdly._--His having all the soldiers on their posts, and the garrison fully prepared before the alarm bell rung. It could not then, of course, be rung to assemble the soldiers, but to alarm the prisoners, and create confusion among them.

_Fourthly._--The soldiers upon the wall, previous to the alarm bell being rung, informing the prisoners that they would be charged upon directly.

_Fifthly._--The turnkeys going into the yards and closing all the doors but one in each prison, while the attention of the prisoners was attracted by the alarm bell. This was done about fifteen minutes sooner than usual, and without informing the prisoners it was time to shut up. It was ever the invariable practice of the turnkeys, from which they never deviated before that night, when coming into the yard to shut up, to hollow to the prisoners so loud as to be heard throughout the yards, “_turn in, turn in!_” but, on that night, it was done so secretly, that not one man in a hundred knew they were shut; and in particular their shutting the door of No. 7 prison, which the prisoners usually went in and out at, [and which was formerly always closed last] and leaving one open in the other end of the prison, which was exposed to a cross-fire from the soldiers on the walls, and which the prisoners had to pass in gaining the prisons.

We here solemnly aver, that there was no preconcerted plan to attempt breaking out. There cannot be produced the least shadow of a reason or inducement for that intention, the prisoners daily expecting to be released, and to embark on board cartels for their native country. And we likewise solemnly assert, that there was no intention of resisting, in any manner, the authority of this depot.

N. B. Seven were killed, thirty dangerously wounded, and thirty slightly so. Total, sixty-seven killed and wounded.

(Signed)

WM. B. ORNE, } WM. HOBART, } JAMES BOGGS, } JAMES ADAMS, } FRANCIS JOSEPH, } JOHN F. TROBRIDGE, } _Committee_. JOHN RUST, } HENRY ALLEN, } WALTER COLTON, } THOMAS B. MOTT. }

DARTMOOR PRISON, April 7th, 1815.

The same day Mr. Ingraham come to the prison and informed the prisoners that he had come for the purpose of shipping a number of men, to man ships now lying in different ports in Europe; he also informed us that he had been appointed agent, under the consular agent of the United States: and that every preparation was making for the immediate release of every prisoner, and we might be assured of the immediate arrival of the ships from London to convey us to the United States.

On the tenth, a number were discharged to man different ships in Europe; this day arrangements were made by the prisoners, for the assistance and relief of our wounded countrymen in the Hospital, and also an arrangement for the prisoners to wear crape on their arm for thirty days after their arrival in America, as a tribute of respect due to their departed friends and fellow-prisoners. The wounded in the hospital were paid every attention, for their comfort and speedy recovery, by Doctor Magrath.

We received no letters from Mr. Beasley, although hundreds of letters had been sent to him since the melancholy event of the 6th. Reports were circulating that a new agent was to be appointed by the United States to supersede Mr. Beasley, which every man most anxiously wished might be true, but had not the satisfaction to learn it was the case; every day’s delay made more confusion and anxiety among the prisoners. The weather during this month up to the present day, had been remarkably fine, pure and healthy, and more so than it had been at this place since our confinement; as if the All-Seeing Eye of Heaven looked down with pity and compassion upon our injured and wounded countrymen, and dispensed His blessings for their speedy recovery in the salubrity of His air. That passage in Holy Writ, in this instance, seemed to be remarkably verified: “that when the prisoner was sick in prison, He visited him.”

Capt. Shortland, after being acquitted, resumed the command of the depot, but he was seldom seen by the prisoners, being very apprehensive that the prisoners would shoot him the first opportunity; therefore he kept a body guard around him, and this day a draft of thirty prisoners being discharged, and having to pass by his house, he had his guard stationed at his door.

On the morning of the twelfth, we were informed by Capt. Shortland that the drafts for the discharge of the prisoners were already made out, and that the draft for the first cartel would consist of 280, to be discharged as they entered this depot. I therefore obtained the exact number of prisoners then in each prison, which I shall give as follows:

Prison No 1, contained, 1290 3, 952 4, 978 5, 938 7, 1248 In different employments about the stores and hospital, 29 Patients in the hospital, 107 ---- Total number of unparoled prisoners in England, 5542