to
physicians. Dobson and M'Grath deserve medals of gold, and hearts of
gratitude, for their kind attention to us all.

CHAPTER IV.

The establishment of prison-ships at Chatham is broken up, and the
last of the prisoners were marched from Plymouth to this place, the
30th of November. They were marched from that place to this, in one
day, half leg deep in mud. Some lost their shoes; others, to preserve
them, took them off, and carried them in their hands. When they
arrived here, they were indeed objects of pity; nevertheless they were
immediately shut up in a cold, damp prison, without any bedding, or
any of the ordinary conveniences, until they could be examined and
described in the commander's books; after which they were permitted to
mix with the rest of their countrymen. We found many of them, the day
after their arrival, unable to walk, by reason of their too long
protracted march, in a very bad road. A prudent drover would not have
risked his cattle by driving them through such a road in a few hours.
Such a thing never was done in America, with British prisoners.

I find all the prisoners here deeply exasperated against Captain
Shortland, and too much prejudiced to hear any thing in his favor. I
presume they have reason for it. As I have but just arrived, I have
had but little opportunity of seeing and judging his conduct. Instead
of his being a bad hearted man, I am disposed to believe that the
fault is in his understanding and education. I suspect that he is a
man of narrow views; that he has not sufficient information, or
capacity, to form a right judgment of the peculiar cast and character
of the people under his charge. He has never, perhaps, considered,
that these descendants of Englishmen, the free inhabitants of the new
world, have been born and brought up in, if we may speak so, Indian
freedom; on which freedom has been superinduced an education purely
democratic, in schools where degrading punishments are unknown; where
if a schoolmaster exercised the severity common in English and German
schools, they would tie the master's hands with his own bell-rope. He
has never considered that our potent militia choose their own
officers; and that the people choose all their officers and leaders
from among themselves; and that there are very few men indeed, none,
perhaps, in New-England, who would refuse to shake hands with a decent
yeoman. It is probable that Captain Shortland has never once reflected