ugh
for a man to creep out, cut through the thick planking of a ship of
the line! While they stared and looked pale, many of the prisoners
burst out a laughing. None but an American could have thought, and
executed such a thing as this. One of the officers said he did not
believe that the Devil himself would ever be able to keep these
fellows in hell, if they determined on getting out.

The poor fellow who had crept out, and crept back again, was so
chilled, or petrified with fear, that he could give the officers no
account of the matter. In the mean time, muskets were fired; and a
general alarm given through the fleet of prison ships, fifteen in
number. The river was soon covered with boats; but not a man could
they find. The next day the man who escaped was found dead on the
beach, where he lay two days in the sight of us all. At length a
coroner's inquest was held upon him; but no one was examined by the
jury, excepting the crew of the boat, who first discovered him. It was
said that there were bruises about his head. His ship-mates said, that
he was one of the best swimmers they ever knew. It was strongly
suspected that he was discovered swimming, and that some of the
marines knocked him on the head, in revenge for turning them out of
their hammocks in the night. His clothing, his money, and his watch,
were taken by lieutenant _Osmore_, the commander of this prison ship.
It was disgraceful to the civil authority, to allow the man to lay
such a long space of time, unexamined, and unburied, on the shores of
a Christian people.

When the prisoners were called to answer to their names, those absent
were called over several times; when some of the prisoners answered,
that "the absentees had been paroled by the commander, and gone on
shore." This saucy answer enraged the commander, excited his
resentment, and laid the foundation for future difficulties.

I must needs say, that some of our young men treated Mr. Osmore, the
first officer of this prison ship, in a manner not to be excused, or
even palliated. If they did not love him, or esteem him, still, as he
was the legally constituted commander of this depot of prisoners, he
was entitled to good manners, which he did not always receive, as the
following anecdote will show. Not long after the escape of the sixteen
men, our commander and his family were getting into the boat to go on
shore, on a Sunday, when a boy looked out of a port near to him, and
cried out _baa! b