CAPTAIN JOSHUA BARNEY
Among the earlier privateersmen in the War of Secession was Joshua
Barney, a naval officer, who, after having been a prisoner of war for
five months, was released by exchange, and, failing naval employment,
went as first officer of a privateer under Captain Isaiah Robinson--also
a naval officer.
Barney had previously made a venture on his own account in a small
trading-vessel, which was speedily captured, the English captain landing
his prisoners on the Chesapeake.
After some difficulty, Robinson secured a brig named _Pomona_; she
carried a scratch armament of 12 guns of various sizes and a crew of 35
men. The vessel was laden with tobacco for Bordeaux, and the primary
object was to get the cargo through safely: but Robinson and Barney,
with their naval training, were by no means averse to a fight, and they
had only been out a few days when the opportunity arose, a fast-sailing
brig giving chase and quickly overhauling the _Pomona_.
At 8 p.m. on a February evening, with a bright moon, the stranger came
within hail, ran up her colours, and asked, "What ship is that?" The
American ran up his flag, and the Englishman immediately shouted to haul
it down.
Upon this Robinson delivered his broadside, which inflicted considerable
damage upon the other, bringing down his foretopsail, cutting some of
his rigging, and causing, we are told, much surprise and confusion on
board--though why the Englishmen should be surprised it is difficult to
comprehend, as it is to be presumed that they chased with the intention
of fighting.
Then commenced a running action, which lasted until nearly midnight. The
English captain, finding that the _Pomona_ had no stern-gun ports,
endeavoured to keep as much as possible astern and on the quarter where
he could ply his bow-guns without receiving much in return; but, we are
told, the crew had been thrown into such confusion by the _Pomona's_
first broadside that they were able to fire _only one or two shots every
half-hour_--three or four rounds an hour; so Robinson had a port cut in
his stern, and ran out a 3-pounder gun there; and, when the English
vessel was coming up again for another of her leisurely discharges, she
received a dose of grape which caused her captain to haul off--nor did
he venture near enough during the night to fire another shot.
Daylight showed the English brig to be armed with sixteen guns; and
several officers were observed, displaying themselves in conspicuous
places, in uniforms resembling those of the Navy. This was supposed to
be a ruse, whereby the Americans were to be demoralised, imagining
themselves to be engaged with a regular ship of war. "This, the English
thought," says Mr. Maclay, "would show the Americans the hopelessness
of the struggle, and would induce them to surrender without further
resistance"; but he does not know what the English thought, or whether
the officers in this privateer habitually dressed in some kind of
uniform of their own.
However, the enemy, about sunrise, approached the quarter of the
_Pomona_ with the obvious intention of boarding; and then the 3-pounder
came into play once more. It was loaded with grape-shot, "and the charge
was topped off by a crowbar stuck into the muzzle." Waiting until the
enemy was just about to board, Robinson, with his own hand, let go this
charge of grape and crowbar, "and with such accurate aim" (at, say, ten
yards range!) "that the British were completely baffled in their
attempt, their foresails and all their weather foreshrouds being cut
away."
Well, one cannot, of course, say that this is untrue; but that 3-pounder
was certainly a marvellous little piece. It carried a solid ball, the
size of which may be judged by any one who will toss up a three-pound
weight from an ordinary set of scales, and the bore of the gun was just
large enough to admit it easily; yet we are told that the charge of
grape--small iron or leaden bullets--was equal to cutting all the
foreshrouds, and all the head-sail halyards--if this is what is meant by
"foresails," which is a vague term, not in use among seamen.
This, however, is the story; and the English captain immediately putting
his helm "hard up" to take the strain off his unsupported foremast,
Robinson took occasion to give him a raking broadside; and this was the
last shot fired, the Englishman failing to come up to the scratch again,
and the _Pomona_ proceeding on her voyage.
The British vessel was said to be the privateer _Rosebud_, with a crew
of one hundred men, of whom forty-seven were killed and wounded; we are
not told the _Pomona's_ loss. Captain Duncan, of the _Rosebud_,
complained at New York that the Americans had not "fought fair," using
"langrage"--_i.e._ rough bits of iron, old nails, etc.; but this
illusion was put down to the crowbar--quite a legitimate missile!
There is no British account to hand of this action; but it is impossible
to feel any great admiration of the "Rosebuds," in allowing a vessel of
such inferior force to beat them off. They must have been sadly lacking
in thorns!
The _Pomona_ reached Bordeaux in safety, and there her captain, having
sold his tobacco, purchased a more satisfactory lot of guns, powder, and
shot, and raised his crew to 70 men; and, having shipped a cargo of
brandy, made sail on his return voyage to America.
On the road he encountered a British privateer of 16 guns and 70 men;
after several encounters, the Englishman all the while endeavouring to
escape, Robinson captured her: British loss, 12 killed, and "a number"
wounded; American loss, 1 killed, 2 wounded.
The _Pomona_, however, was destined to have her career cut short by
capture, and then there commenced a series of adventures for Joshua
Barney as a prisoner of war. We are not told when or by whom the
_Pomona_ was captured; Mr. Maclay, on page 148, says: "In the chapter on
'Navy Officers in Privateers', mention was made of the capture of the
armed brig, _Pomona_, commanded by Captain Isaiah Robinson, who had, as
his first officer, Lieutenant Joshua Barney, also of the regular
service." There is nothing, however, to be found, in the chapter
referred to, about the capture of the _Pomona_. The final allusion is to
her safe arrival in America from Bordeaux, probably in September 1779.
However, it appears that Joshua Barney became a prisoner some time
between September 1779 and the autumn of 1780, and was placed in one of
the prison-ships. The arrival of Admiral Byron, it is said, brought
about a welcome change in the prison administration; some additional
ships were ordered for the accommodation of the American officers, and
the admiral personally inspected all the prison-ships once a week; while
some of the officers who belonged to the regular navy were taken on
board the flagship _Ardent_.
Barney, it appears, was selected for special consideration by Admiral
Byron, having a boat placed at his service, and being entrusted with the
duty of visiting the prison-ships in which his compatriots were confined
and reporting upon their condition to the admiral. The only restriction
placed upon his liberty was the obligation to sleep on board the
_Ardent_: he was certainly a most highly favoured prisoner of war.
Upon one occasion, landing in New York in his American naval uniform, to
breakfast with one of the admiral's staff, he was seized upon by an
infuriated mob, who were proceeding to throw him into a fire which was
raging, alleging that he had originated the conflagration. A British
officer fortunately intervened and explained the situation.
Upon the advent of Admiral Rodney, however, this pleasant time came to
an end; and in November--_not_ December, as in Mr. Maclay's
account--1780, Barney, in company with about seventy other American
officers, was placed on board the _Yarmouth_, a 64-gun ship, under the
command of Captain Lutwidge, for conveyance to England; and here is Mr.
Maclay's description of the treatment they received.
"From the time these Americans stepped aboard the _Yarmouth_ their
captors gave it to be understood, by hints and innuendoes, that they
were being taken to England to 'be hanged as rebels'; and, indeed, the
treatment they received aboard the _Yarmouth_ on the passage over led
them to believe that the British officers intended to cheat the gallows
of their prey by causing the prisoners to die before reaching port. On
coming aboard the ship of the line these officers were stowed away in
the lower hold, next to the keel, under five decks, and many feet below
the water-line. Here, in a twelve-by-twenty-foot room, with up-curving
floor, and only three feet high, the seventy-one men were stowed for
fifty-three days like so much merchandise, without light or good air,
unable to stand upright, with no means and with no attempt made to
remove the accumulating filth! Their food was of the poorest quality,
and was supplied in such insufficient quantities that, whenever one of
the prisoners died, the survivors concealed the fact until the body
began to putrefy, in order that the dead man's allowance might be added
to theirs. The water served them to drink was so thick with repulsive
matter that the prisoners were compelled to strain it between compressed
teeth.
"From the time the _Yarmouth_ left New York till she reached Plymouth,
in a most tempestuous winter's passage, these men were kept in this
loathsome dungeon. Eleven died in delirium, their wild ravings and
piercing shrieks appalling their comrades, and giving them a foretaste
of what they themselves might soon expect. Not even a surgeon was
permitted to visit them. Arriving at Plymouth the pale, emaciated,
festering men were ordered to come on deck. Not one obeyed, for they
were unable to stand upright. Consequently they were hoisted up, the
ceremony being grimly suggestive of the manner in which they had been
treated--like merchandise. And what were they to do, now that they had
been placed on deck? The light of the sun, which they had scarcely seen
for fifty-three days, fell upon their weak, dilated pupils with blinding
force, their limbs unable to uphold them, their frames wasted by disease
and want. Seeking for support, they fell in a helpless mass, one upon
the other, waiting and almost hoping for the blow that was to fall upon
them next. Captain Silas Talbot was one of these prisoners.
"To send them ashore in this condition was 'impracticable,' so the
British officers said, and we readily discover that this 'impracticable'
served the further purpose of diverting the just indignation of the
landsfolk, which surely would be aroused if they saw such brutality
practised under St. George's cross. Waiting, then, until the captives
could at least endure the light of day, and could walk without leaning
on one another or clutching at every object for support, the officers
had them moved to old Mill Prison."
This is a terrible picture of the treatment of American prisoners of
war, in striking contrast to the generous conduct of Vice-Admiral the
Hon. John Byron--to give him his correct title--towards Barney and his
fellow-prisoners. If it is to be accepted as absolutely true, it should
make Englishmen blush to read it, constituting a shameful record against
us, as represented by Captain Lutwidge and his subordinates.
But is it absolutely true? This question is suggested, in the first
instance, by the utter wildness of the writer's chronology with regard
to the pleasing episode in connection with Admiral Byron; for it was
during Joshua Barney's _first_ period of imprisonment that he came in
contact with Byron, in the year 1778. It could not have been after the
capture of the _Pomona_, as Byron was in the West Indies in the summer
of 1779, in pursuit of the French Admiral D'Estaing, and returned thence
to England, arriving on October 10th in that year--he was not employed
again. Moreover, during the time of Barney's second imprisonment, at New
York, there was no _Ardent_ on the Navy List: she was captured by the
French on August 17th, 1779--while Barney was on his homeward voyage in
the _Pomona_--and recaptured in April 1782.
Such reckless chronicling might well discredit the whole of this
writer's account of the incidents; fortunately--or unfortunately--for
him, however, there is another source of information in a "Biographical
Memoir of Commodore Barney," by Mary Barney--his daughter,
perhaps--published in 1832, in which the dates are more consistent with
possibilities. Probably Mr. Maclay derived his information from this
volume, and, by an extraordinary oversight, confused the two periods.
From this record it appears that Barney was a lieutenant on board the
frigate _Virginia_ when she was captured by the British on April 1st,
1778, and that he was very kindly treated by two English captains,
Caldwell and Onslow, under whose charge he found himself for a time and
subsequently, as related, by Admiral Byron.[15] Moreover, it is here
stated that it was while serving on board a regular war-ship, the
_Saratoga_, that Barney was a second time made prisoner, being captured
when in charge of a prize, and not on board the _Pomona_ at all: so here
is more recklessness of narration, which appears quite inexcusable, as
the writer, it is to be presumed, had access to this memoir, which is
said to be compiled from Barney's own statements to the author.
Now, with regard to the shocking treatment of the prisoners on board the
_Yarmouth_.
Mary Barney disclaims any wish to aggravate the case, declaring that she
had the story from the lips of Joshua Barney, and appeals to his
generous recognition of former kindness as a guarantee against wilful
misrepresentation on this occasion.
Very good. But there is in existence the captain's log of the
_Yarmouth_, also his letter to the Admiralty, reporting his arrival in
England, and these official documents tend to discredit the dismal story
in some important particulars.
The _Yarmouth_, we learn, sailed on November 15th, 1780, and arrived at
Plymouth on December 29th--so she was forty-four, not fifty-three days
at sea. The weather was very rough, and the ship developed some serious
leaks, which increased alarmingly through the straining in the heavy
sea. Under these circumstances, the ship's company being very sickly,
with more than one hundred men actually on the sick list--one hundred
and eleven, according to the "State and Condition" report on
arrival--Captain Lutwidge states that he had the prisoners
"watched"--_i.e._ divided into port and starboard watch, and set them to
the pumps: "I found it necessary to employ the prisoners at the pumps,
and on that account to order them whole allowance of provisions--the
ship's company, from their weak and sickly state, being unequal to that
duty."
According to the log, _five_ prisoners, not eleven, died on the voyage,
the deaths and burials at sea being precisely recorded.
So here we have the official record that, while the ship's company were
too much enfeebled by sickness to work the pumps--in addition, of
course, to constant handling of the heavy sails and spars in tempestuous
weather--the American prisoners were sufficiently robust to perform this
duty, and probably save the vessel from serious peril through her leaky
condition.
In order to do this they must have been called on deck and mustered,
placed in watches, and subsequently summoned in regular turn for their
"spell" at the pumps.
This story is obviously incompatible with the other, and it is, to say
the least of it, very remarkable that this pumping in watches, and full
provision allowance, should have been entirely forgotten by Barney in
his narration.
It is certainly open to any one, in view of this omission, to question
the accuracy of other statements; to hesitate before accepting the story
of seventy-one men being confined in a space twenty feet by twelve and
only six inches higher than an ordinary table; of eleven of them dying
in shrieking delirium, denied medical attendance, and six out of eleven
deaths being suppressed. The treatment of our American prisoners was
undoubtedly sometimes unduly harsh, but it is impossible to accept this
story as literally true.
Mr. Maclay's book and Mary Barney's memoirs are alike accessible to any
one, and for this reason it is necessary that the other side should be
heard--Joshua Barney having been a very prominent American
privateersman.
While on the subject, it is as well to refer to the treatment of
prisoners in Mill Prison, at Plymouth, of which Mr. Maclay has a good
deal to say; and in support of his contention as to their being placed
upon a different diet from other prisoners of war, he has two sentences
in inverted commas (page 152), which are stated in a footnote to be
quoted from the _Annual Register_ of 1781, page 152; but no such
passages occur there, nor in adjacent pages.
It is, however, perfectly true that a petition was presented, on June
20th, 1781, to the House of Lords, and discussed on July 2nd following,
from these prisoners. The only complaint which was found to be
substantiated was that the Americans were allowed half a pound less
bread daily than the French and other nationalities. It would have been
more accurate to put it that the French had half a pound more--for this
was stated to be supplied, as being equal to the allowance to British
prisoners in France. The question of increasing the allowance was put to
the vote, and negatived; but it was shown that the American prisoners'
diet was, as a whole, superior to that allowed to our own troops on
board transports; and their health was stated to be excellent, which is
borne out by the fact, as stated by Mr. Maclay, that they indulged in
athletic games as a pastime. Men who are half naked and nearly starving
do not indulge in such pastimes.
And now for the continued adventures of Joshua Barney, privateersman.
Bold and resourceful, he determined to face the difficulties of escape,
and the very unpleasant consequences of detection.
One day, playing at leap-frog, he pretended to have sprained his ankle,
and for some time afterwards went about on crutches, maintaining the
deception so skilfully as to throw the warders off their guard, and
completely deceive all but a few of his intimate friends. He had already
paved the way, by making friends with a soldier of the prison guard, who
had served in the British army in America, and had there received some
kindness, which he was willing to requite by civility to the Americans
in Mill Prison.
On May 18th, 1781, this man was on sentry outside the inner gate--the
prison being encircled by two high walls, with a space between--and
Barney, hopping by on his crutches, whispered through the gate: "Today?"
"Dinner," replied the sentry, with equal terseness, which meant one
o'clock, when the warders dined. The friendly but disloyal soldier had
provided Barney with the undress uniform of a British officer--which
appears an unusual sort of thing for a private soldier to be able to lay
hands upon without detection--and this Barney donned in his cell,
putting on his greatcoat over it--his greatcoat, which, since he
sprained his ankle, he had been wearing "for fear he should catch cold":
Barney was a man of details.
Still upon crutches, he left his cell, and, at a prearranged signal,
some of his friends proceeded to engage the several sentries in
conversation, while one, a stalwart individual, stood close by the gate.
Throwing aside his crutches, Barney walked across the enclosure towards
the gate, and, first exchanging a reassuring wink with the sentry,
sprang with catlike agility upon the shoulders of his athletic
accomplice, and in a moment was over the wall. Slipping off his
greatcoat, and "tipping" the soldier to the extent of four guineas, he
passed through the gate in the outer wall, which was usually left open
for the convenience of the prison officials, but with an attendant on
duty who, though we are not told that he had been "squared," obligingly
turned his back as the escaping prisoner passed through.
So far, so good. And really Joshua Barney is to be congratulated upon
the accommodating character of his custodians, which rendered it
possible for him to cross the prison-yard at one o'clock on a May day
and scale the wall, while the sentries conversed with his friends and
the warders enjoyed their dinner, having previously been permitted to
malinger with a sham sprained ankle. We are told that he had it bathed
and bandaged for some time without being challenged and detected by the
surgeon, though somebody in authority must have provided him with
crutches. It appears somewhat absurd to insist upon the rigour of
confinement in Mill Prison, in the face of this.
However, Barney was free, and he had friends near by who concealed him,
and took him on to the house of an old clergyman in Plymouth in the
evening. No immediate inquiry was made for him in the prison, for he had
provided a substitute to answer his name at roll-call in the cell every
day--a "slender youth," we are told, "who was able to creep through the
window-bars at pleasure," and so crawled into Barney's cell and answered
for him. We are not told who the "slender youth" was, or how, if he was
an American prisoner, he contrived also to answer for himself in his
own cell. Anyhow, this was an amazingly slack prison, for any such freak
to be possible.
Finding two fellow-countrymen who had been captured as passengers in a
merchant vessel and were looking for a chance of returning, they secured
a fishing-smack, Barney rigged himself up in an old coat tied with
tarred rope round the waist and a tarpaulin hat, and soon after daybreak
they sailed down the River Plym, past the forts and men-of-war, and
safely out to sea.
But they were not destined so easily to reach the coast of France,
whence they hoped to find a passage to America. An inconveniently
zealous British privateer from Guernsey boarded the smack, and the
skipper was unduly inquisitive. Upon Barney opening his coat and showing
his British uniform, the privateersman, though more polite, was
obviously suspicious. What business had a British officer on the enemy's
coast?--for Barney had stated that he was bound there. Barney made an
official mystery of his "business," and refused to reveal it--a state
secret, and so on.
No use! The privateer captain's sensitive conscience would not permit
him to let the smack go, and so the two vessels beat up for the English
coast in company, and on the following morning came to anchor in a small
harbour about six miles from Plymouth, probably Causand Bay. Here the
privateer captain went on shore, on his way to Plymouth, to report to
Admiral Digby, while most of his crew also landed to avoid the risk of
being taken by the press-gang on board. Barney, however, though he was
treated with courtesy, was detained on board the privateer.
There was a boat made fast astern, and into this the American quietly
slipped, hurting his leg as he did so, and sculled on shore, shouting to
some of the idlers on the beach to help him haul up the boat.
The customs officer was disposed to be inquisitive and talkative, but
Barney pointed to the blood oozing through his stocking, and said he
must go off and get his leg tied up.
"Pray, sir," he said, "can you tell me where our people are?"
He was told they were at the Red Lion, at the end of the village, which
he discovered, much to his annoyance, that he was obliged to pass. He
had almost succeeded in doing so unobserved, when one of the men shouted
after him, and, approaching, gave him to understand that some of the
privateer's crew had an idea of shipping in the Navy, and wanted some
particulars from him; showing that his disguise had deceived them.
Barney invited the man to accompany him to Plymouth, walking away
rapidly while he spoke; but, as Mr. Maclay puts it, the tar "seemed to
think better of his plan of entering a navy noted for its cruelty to
seamen," and accordingly turned back.
Barney now began to be very anxious about his safety. He was on the high
road to Plymouth, where he might at any moment encounter a guard sent
out to recapture him; so he jumped over a hedge into Lord
Mount-Edgecumbe's grounds, where the gardener, pacified by a "tip," let
him out by a private gate to the waterside--and none too soon, for, as
he passed out, the guard sent to seek him tramped along on the other
side of the hedge he had jumped over. A butcher, conveying some stock by
water, took him across the river, and that night he found himself back
at the old clergyman's house from which he had started. His two friends
of the fishing-smack adventure here joined him once more, and while they
were at supper the town-crier bawled under the window that five guineas
reward would be paid for the capture of Joshua Barney, a rebel deserter
from Mill Prison.
Three days later, dressed in fashionable attire, Barney stepped into a
post-chaise at midnight and drove off for Exeter. He was stopped at the
Plymouth gate, and a lantern thrust in to see if he corresponded with
the description of himself which had been circulated. Apparently he did
not, for he was permitted to proceed, and eventually passed on to
Bristol and London, France, and Holland; whence he shipped on board the
armed ship _South Carolina_, which he saved, by prompt measures and good
seamanship, from being wrecked on the Dutch coast--her officers being,
apparently, timid and incompetent.
Eventually, having transhipped on board the _Cicero_, another American
privateer, Barney reached Beverley, Massachusetts--the writer does not
give the date, but it must have been in the autumn of 1781. At Boston,
we are told, he met several of his fellow-prisoners who had also escaped
from Mill Prison.
[Footnote 15: There still remains the question of Byron's flagship. She
was certainly the _Princess Royal_ when he arrived at New York; but as
the _Ardent_, 64, was one of the vessels of his squadron, it is, of
course, possible that he may subsequently have hoisted his flag on her
temporarily.]