s 'Dead and Alive
Man' got the prize. It would be a great addition to our pleasure to hear
that those encouragers of the fine arts have offered him fifteen hundred
or two thousand guineas for it....

"There is an old lady waiting your return to have her portrait painted.
Bangley says one or two more are enquiring for Mr. Morse.

"You seem to have forgotten your friend in Stapleton prison. Did you not
succeed in obtaining his release?"

This refers to a certain Mr. Benjamin Burritt, an American prisoner of
war. Morse used every effort, through his friend Henry Thornton, to
secure the release of Mr. Burritt. On December 30, 1813, he wrote to Mr.
Thornton from Bristol:--

RESPECTED SIR,--I take the liberty of addressing you in behalf of an
American prisoner of war now in the Stapleton depot, and I address you,
sir, under the conviction that a petition in the cause of humanity will
not be considered by you as obtrusive.

The prisoner I allude to is a gentleman of the name of Burritt, a native
of New Haven, in the State of Connecticut; his connections are of the
highest respectability in that city, which is notorious for its adherence
to Federal principles. His friends and relatives are among my father's
friends, and, although I was not, until now, personally acquainted with
him, yet his face is familiar to me, and many of his relatives were my
particular friends while I was receiving my education at Yale College in
New Haven. From that college he was graduated in the year ----. A
classmate of his was the Reverend Mr. Stuart, who is one of the
professors of the Andover Theological Institution, and of whom, I think,
my father has spoken in some of his letters to Mr. Wilberforce.

Mr. Burritt, after he left college, applied himself to study, so much so
as to injure his health, and, by the advice of his physicians, he took to
the sea as the only remedy left for him. This had the desired effect, and
he was restored to health in a considerable degree.

Upon the breaking out of the war with this country, all the American
coasting trade being destroyed, he took a situation as second mate in the
schooner Revenge, bound to France, and was captured on the 10th of May,
1813.

Since that time he has been a prisoner, and, from the enclosed
certificates, you will ascertain what has been his conduct. He is a man
of excellent religious principles, and, I firmly believe, of the
strictest integrity. So well assured am I of this that,