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

In justice to Mr. Miller, the British agent, I ought to record that he paid great attention to the cleanliness of the prison, and to the clothes of the men; and I must, at the same time, say that some of our men were very dirty, lazy fellows, that required constantly spurring up to keep them from being offensive. This indolent and careless disposition was observed to be chiefly among those who had been formerly intemperate; they felt the loss of their beloved stimulus, their spirits sunk, and they had rather lay down and rot, and die, than exert themselves. There were a few who seemed to be like hogs, innately dirty, and who had rather lie dirty than clean. Mr. Miller had therefore great merit in compelling these men to follow the rules prescribed to the whole prison. For this he had the thanks of every considerate American.

It was a common remark, that the most indolent and most slovenly men were the most vicious; and a dirty external was a pretty sure indication of a depraved mind. Such as would not conform to the rules of cleanliness were committed to the black hole , which was under the prison, and divided into solitary cells. The agent had the power of confining a prisoner in one of these dungeons during ten days. It is to the credit of our seamen to remark, that they co-operated with the agent most heartily in whatever tended to preserve the cleanliness of their persons, and they applauded the confinement of such as were disinclined to follow the salutary rules of the prison.

We were one day not a little shocked by the arrival of a number of American soldiers who were entrapped and taken with Colonel Boestler , in Upper Canada. They exhibited a picture of starvation, misery, woe, and despair. Their miserable condition called forth our sympathy and compassion, and I may add, excited our resentment against the authors of their distress. These unfortunate landsmen had never been used to "rough it" like sailors, but had lived the easy life of farmers and mechanics. Some of them had never experienced the hardships of a soldier's life, but were raw, inexperienced militia men. They were taken at some creek between Fort George and Little York, by the British and their allies the Indians, who stripped them of most of their clothing, and then wore them down by very long and harrassing marches; first to Montreal, and then to Quebec; and soon after crowded them on board transports, like negroes in a Guinea ship, where some suffered a lingering death, and others merely escaped it. It appears from their account, and from every other account, that the treatment of these poor fellows at their capture, and on their march, and more especially on board the transports from Quebec to Halifax , was barbarous in the extreme, and highly disgraceful to the British name and nation.

We have it asserted uniformly, that the prisoners, who came from Quebec to Halifax and to Boston, down the St. Lawrence, were treated and provided for in a manner little above brutes. Colonel Scott, now Major General Scott, came by that route from Quebec to Boston, and it is well known that he complained, that there were neither accommodations, provisions, nor any thing on board the ship proper for a gentleman. He spoke of the whole treatment he received with deep disgust and pointed resentment. If an officer of his rank and accomplishments had so much reason for complaint, we may easily conceive what the private soldier must have endured.

We paid every attention in our power to these poor soldiers, whose emaciated appearance and dejection gave us reason to expect that an end would soon be put to their sufferings by death. They, however, recruited fast; and we were soon convinced, that they were reduced to the condition we saw them in, absolutely for want of food . The account which these soldiers gave of their hardships was enough to fill with rage and resentment the heart of a saint. Four men were not allowed more provisions than what was needful for one. They assured us, that if they had not secretly come at some bags of ship bread, unknown to the officers of the transport, they must have perished for want of food . We cannot pass over one anecdote. Some fish were caught by our own people on the passage, in common with the crew, but they were compelled to deliver them all to the captain of the ship, who withheld them from the American prisoners. Some of the prisoners had a little money, and the captain of the transport was mean enough to take a dollar for a single cod fish, from men in their situation. This fact has appeared in several Boston papers, with the names of the persons concerned, and has never been contradicted or doubted. We give this as the common report; and as the Boston newspapers circulated freely through Nova Scotia and Canada, we infer, that had the story been void of truth, it would have been contradicted. This has been amply confirmed.

Those Americans who have no other knowledge of the English character, but what they gather from books made in London; and from their dramatic productions, and from their national songs, would believe, as I myself once did, that John Bull , (by which name Dean Swift personified the whole nation) was a humane, tender-hearted, generous gentleman; but let him be once in the power of an Englishman, or what is still worse, of a Scotchman, and it will correct his erroneous notions. An Englishman is strongly attached to his king and country; and thinks nothing on earth can equal them, while he holds all the rest of the world in comparative contempt. Until the days of Bonaparte, the people of England really believed that one Englishman could flog six Frenchmen. They, at one time, had the same idea of us, Americans; but the late war has corrected their articles of belief. The humanity of the British is one of the most monstrous impositions, now afloat in the world.

The most glaring feature in the English character is a vain glorious ostentation, as is exhibited in their elegant and costly steeples, superb hospitals, useless cathedrals, lying columns; such as the monument near London bridge, which as Pope says of it,

But if you wish to learn their real character, look at their bloody code of laws, read their wars with Wales, with Scotland, and with Ireland. Look at India, and at their own West India Islands. Look at the present "border war" carried on by associating themselves with our savages; look into this very prison, ask the soldiers just brought into it, what they think of British humanity or British bravery. A reliance on British veracity and honour caused these poor fellows to surrender, when they found them worse than the Indians. These things may be forgiven, but they ought never to be forgotten.

Nova Scotia, or New Scotland , was formerly called Chebucto by the native Indians. It is a dreary region. The country, for many miles west of Halifax, is a continued range of mountains, rising one over the other, as far as the eye can reach. The winters are severe, and the springs backward. The trees appeared to be as bare on the 26th of May as the same kind of trees do in the middle of March, with us in Massachusetts. To us there was something hideous in the aspect of their mountains; but this may have been partly owing to our own hideous habitation, and low spirits. The same objects may have appeared charming in the eyes of a Scotch family, just arrived from the fag-end of the Island of Great Britain.

The capital, Halifax , was settled by a number of British subjects in 1749. It is situated on a spacious and commodious bay or harbour, called Chebucto, of a bold and easy entrance, where a thousand of the largest ships might ride with safety. The town is built on the west side of the harbor, and on the declivity of a commanding hill, whose summit is two hundred and thirty-six feet perpendicular from the level of the sea. The town is laid out into oblong squares; the streets parallel and at right angles. The town and suburbs are about two miles in length; and the general width a quarter of a mile. It contained in 1793, about four thousand inhabitants and seven hundred houses. At the northern extremity of the town, is the king's naval yard, completely built and supplied with stores of every kind for the royal navy. The harbor of Halifax is reckoned inferior to no place in British America for the seat of government, being open and accessible at all seasons of the year, when almost all other harbors in these provinces are locked up with ice; also from its entrance, situation, and its proximity to the bay of Fundy, and principal interior settlements of the province. This city lying on the S coast of Nova Scotia has communication with Pictou, sixty-eight miles to the NE on the gulf of St. Lawrence, by a good cart road finished in 1792. It is twelve miles northerly of Cape Sambro, which forms in part the entrance of the bay; twenty-seven south easterly of Windsor, forty N by E of Truro, eighty NE by E of Annapolis, on the bay of Fundy, and one hundred and fifty-seven SE of St. Ann, in New Brunswick, measuring in a straight line. N lat. 44, 40, W lon. 63, 15.