The British prison-ship: a poem, in four cantoes.--Viz. Canto 1. The capture, 2. The prison-ship, 3. The prison-ship, continued, 4. The hospital-prison-ship. : To which is added, a poem on the death of Capt. N. Biddle, who was blown up, in an engagement with the Yarmouth, near Barbadoes. : [Thirteen lines from Milton]

CANTO III. The Prison-Ship, continued.

NO masts nor sails these sickly hulks adorn, Dismal to view! neglected and forlorn;— Here mighty ills oppress the imprison'd throng, Dull were our slumbers and our nights were long; From morn to night throughout the decks we lay, Scorcht into fevers by the solar ray; Wretched and poor, insulted and distrest, The eye dejected, and the heart depress'd; Stript of our all—affronted and derided, For cruel Iris had our cloaths divided—. No friendly awning cast a welcome shade, Once was it promis'd but was never made; No favours could these sons of death bestow,— 'Twas endless cursing—ever-during woe;— Immortal hatred doth their breasts engage, And this lost empire arms their souls with rage. Two hulks on Hudson's rugged bosom ly; Two, farther south, affright the gazing eye.

There the black Scorpion at her mooring rides, There swings Strombolo, yielding to the tides; Here bulky Jersey fills a larger space, And Hunter to all hospitals disgrace. Thou Scorpion fatal to thy crouded throng, Dire theme of horror and Plutonian song; Requir'st my lay—thy sult'ry decks I know, And all the evils of thy holds below; Must nature shudder at this scene of fears, And must I tell what must provoke thy tears; American!—inactive rest no more, But drive those murd'rous Britons from your shore; And ye that o'er the troubled ocean go, Strike not your standards to this cruel foe; Better the greedy wave should swallow all, Better to meet the death-conducting ball; Better to sleep on ocean's Oozy bed, At once destroy'd and number'd with the dead; Than thus to perish in this dismal den, Starv'd and insulted by the worst of men. Some cruel ruffian o'er these hulks presides, Clinton to such the imprison'd host confides; Some wretch who banish'd from the navy crew, Grown old in blood would here his trade renew; Whose 'venom'd tongue when on his charge let loose; Utters reproaches, scandal and abuse; Gives all to hell who dare his king disown, And swears the world was made for George alone. Such are the men who rule the captives there,— A menial tribe their brutal feelings share; Stewards and Mates whom fam'd Britannia bore, Cut from the gallows on their native shore; Heavens! may I never feel the poignant pain, To live subjected to such brutes again;

Their ghastly looks and vengeance-bearing eyes, Still to my view in all their horrors rise; O may I ne'er review these dire abodes, These piles for slaughter floating on the floods; Nature recoils in agonies of woe, And truth astonish'd, asks, Can this be so?— American, on thy own plains expire, A glorious victim to the hostile fire; In thy own ship expect the deadly blow, But be no captive to this tyrant foe; Yield not alive to glut their greedy jaws, First faint, first perish in thy country's cause; Prefer to meet the winged, wasteful ball, And cut to atoms for lov'd freedom fall. Such scenes are acted in these gloomy cells, Such horror in these doleful mansions dwells; So many ills these loathsome hulks defame, That to be here and suffer is the same; Death has its woes and sickness claims its share, But both are trifles if you die not there; When to the ocean dives the parting sun, And the scorcht tories fire their evening gun; A scene of horror rises to the view, Such as the boldest painter never drew; Three hundred prisoners banish'd from the light, Below the decks in torment, spend the night; Some for a bed their tatter'd cloathing join, And some on chests and some on floors recline; Shut from the blessings of the cooling air, Pensive they ly, all anguish and despair; Meagre and sad and scorch'd with heat below, They look like ghosts 'ere death had made them so:

How should they bloom where heat and hunger join, Thus to debase the human form divine; Where cruel thirst the parching throat invades, Dries up the man, and fits him for the shades. No waters laded from the bubbling spring, To these dire ships the generous Britons bring; Oft through the night in vain their captives ask, One drop of water, from the stinking cask; No drop is granted to the earnest prayer, To Dives in the regions of despair; The loathsome cask, a fatal dose contains, Its poison bearing through the alter'd veins; Hence fevers rage where health was seen before, And the lank veins abound with blood no more: O how they long to taste the woodland streams, For these they pine in frantic feverish dreams; To springs and brooks with weary steps they go, And seem to hear the gushing waters flow; Along the purling wave they think they ly, Quaff the sweet stream and all contented die;— Then start from dreams that fright the restless mind, And still new torments in their prison find. Dull flow the hours till from the sky display'd, Sweet morn dispels the horrors of the shade; But what to them is morn's delightful ray, Sad and distressful as the close of day; At distance far appears the dewy green, And leafy trees on mountain tops are seen; But they no groves nor grassy mountains tread, Markt for a longer journey to the dead. At every hatch a group of centries stands, Cull'd form the Scottish or the English bands; As tigers fierce for human blood they thirst, Rejoice in slaughter, as in slaughter nurst;

Of restless, cruel, angry, iron soul, Take these my friend as samples of the whole; Black as the clouds that shade St. Kilda's shore, Wild as the winds that round her mountains roar; Their hearts with malice to our country swell, Because in former days we us'd them well! Ingratitude! no curse like thee is found, Throughout this jarring world's expanded round; But such a host of various ills are found, So many evils in these hulks abound; That on them all a poem to prolong, Would endless make the horrors of my song: To what shall I their ruin'd bread compare, Bak'd for old Cesar's armies you would swear; So great its age, that hard and flinty grown, You ask'd for bread, and they present a stone; Why should I tell what putrid oil they deal, Why the dread horrors of a scanty meal? The rotten pork, the lumpy damag'd flour, Soak'd in salt water, and with age grown sour; Say, must I tell how famish'd messes † join, And on these offals of creation dine;— For once a-day, we touch'd the royal meat, Once and but once at the king's charges eat; (Such hosts he feeds upon our ravag'd shore, How cou'd the heartless, mean soul'd wretch do more;) If from your purse the gold has run to waste, At morn nor evening look for no repast; Then 'ere you sail your purse with gold supply, For on the royal bounty you would die. The vigorous spirit ‡ that the islands § yield, Was by these petty tyrants here with-held;

While yet they deign'd that healthy juce to lade, The putrid water felt its powerful aid; But when deny'd—to aggravate our pains,— Then fevers rag'd and revel'd through our veins;— Throughout my frame I felt its deadly heat, I felt my pulse with quicker motions beat; A ghastly paleness o'er my face was spread, Unusual pains attack my fainting head;— No physic here—no doctor to assist,— My name was enter'd on the sick man's list;— Twelve wretches more the-self same symptoms took, And these were enter'd on the doctor's book; The loathsome Hunter was our destin'd place, The Hunter to all hospitals disgrace; With soldiers sent to guard us on our road, Joyful we left the Scorpion's dire abode; Some tears we shed for the remaining crew, Then curs'd the hulk, and from her sides withdrew.

End of Canto III.

Notes

• The evening gun was commonly fired from a little fortifica|tion called the Refugee fort, north of King's College—at the discharge we were constantly driven below decks; our tormentors crying out, Down Yankies.—
• A barren, rocky and mountainous island on the west of Scotland.
• †

  The prisoners were divided into messes, each mess consisting of six men.
• ‡

  Rum.
• §

  West-Indies.