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

I cannot help remarking here, that the plan of retaliation determined by President Madison, merits the respect and gratitude of the present and future generations of men. It was this energetic step that saved the lives, and insured the usual treatment of ordinary prisoners of war to these American soldiers of Irish birth. This firm determination of the American executive arrested the bloody hand of the British. They remembered Major Andre , and they recollected Sir James Asgill , under the administration of the great Washington, and they trembled for the fate of their own officers. May eternal blessings here, and hereafter, be the reward of Madison, for his righteous intention of retaliating on the enemy any public punishment that should be executed on these American soldiers, of Irish origin. While we feel gratitude and respect to the head of the nation for his scheme of retaliation, we cannot suppress our feelings of disgust towards the faction in our own country, who justified the British government in their conduct towards these few Irishmen, and condemned our own for protecting them from an ignominious death. I speak it with shame for my country—the ablest writers of the oppositionists, and the oldest and most celebrated ministers of religion, employed their venal pens and voices to condemn Mr. Madison , and to justify the British doctrine. This is a deep stain on the character of our clergy; and the subsequent conduct of the British, may serve to shew these ever meddling men, that our enemies despised them, and respected Madison.

Our voyage across the Atlantic afforded but few incidents for remark. Every day brought the same distressed sensations, and every night the same doleful feelings, arising from darkness, stench, increased debility and disease. The general and most distressing in the catalogue of our miseries was the almost unceasing torment of hunger. Many of us would have gladly partaken with our father's hogs, in their hog-troughs. This barbarous system of starvation reduced several of our hale and hearty young men to mere skeletons. What with the allowance of the enemy, and the allowance from our own government, in which was good hot coffee for breakfast, we were generally robust and hearty at Melville Island. Some of our companions might well be called fine looking fellows, when we came first on board the Regulus; but before we arrived on the coast of England, they were so reduced and weakened, that they tottered as they walked. It was the opinion of us all, that one young man absolutely died for want of sufficient food! Yes! Christian Reader, a young American, who was carried on board the Regulus man of war transport, perished for want of sufficient to eat. In this insufficiency of food, complaint was made to the captain of the Regulus, but it produced no increase of the scanty allowance; and had the common sailors possessed no more humanity than their officers, we might all have perished with hunger. You who never felt the agonizing torture of hunger can have no idea of our misery. The study of my profession had acquainted me, that when the stomach is empty and contracted to a certain degree, that it, in a measure, acts upon itself, and draws all the neighbouring organs into sympathy with its distress: this increases to an agony that ends in distraction; for it is well known that those who are starved to death, die raving distracted! Some of us in the course of this horrid voyage could have eaten a puppy or kitten, could we have laid hands upon either.

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.