many of whom were militia, who were taken
on the frontiers of Canada, are not to be withheld from the public.
They were first stripped by the savages in the British service, and
then driven before them, half naked to the city of Quebec; from thence
they were sent, in ill-provided transports, to Halifax, suffering all
the way, the torments of hunger and thirst. When they arrived at
Melville prison, they were shocking objects to the prisoners they
found there; emaciated, weak, dirty, sickly, and but half clothed,
they excited in us all, commisseration for their great misery; and
indignation, contempt and revenge, towards the nation who could allow
such barbarity. The cruel deception practised on their embarkation for
England, instead of going home; their various miseries on ship-board,
where as landsmen, they underwent infinitely more than the sailors;
for many of them never had seen the salt ocean; and their close
confinement in the hold of a ship, gave them the idea of a floating
hell. The captivity of the sailors was sufficiently distressing; but
it was nothing to that of the wretched landsmen, who considered a ship
at all times, a kind of dungeon. The transporting our soldiers to
England, and their sufferings during their passage, and while confined
in that country, has engendered a hatred against the British nation,
that ages will not obliterate, and time scarcely diminish. We,
Americans, can never be justly accused of want of humanity to the
English prisoner.

If the young American wishes to see instances of British barbarity,
let him peruse the journal of the campaigns under Armherst, Wolfe,
Abercromby and others; there he will find that the British soldiers
under these commanders, committed barbarities in the French villages,
for which they deserved to be hanged. They even boasted of _scalping_
the French. Every body of ordinary information in New England, knows
that _Louisbourg_ could not have been taken, without the powerful aid
of the New England troops; yet in the historical journal by Knox,
sanctioned by general Armherst, there is only the following
gentlemanlike notice of our countrymen. The author, captain Knox, says
that the transport he was in, was in miss-stays, and was in danger of
being dashed to pieces on a ledge of rocks, when the master instantly
fell on his knees, crying out--"what shall we do? I vow, I fear we
shall all be lost; let us go to prayers; what can we do, dear
Jonathan? Jonathan went