IMPRISONMENT
It would take another book to describe the immediate and subsequent
adventures and misadventures of Captain Conyngham in prison, for the
next few months of his life were passed in such close confinement that
it seems almost incredible that any human being could have survived
it. He kept a diary during this period that is merely a recital of his
sufferings, and yet we can not pass them over in silence, but must
outline what happened from the day of his capture to the day of his
first attempted escape, an escape that led only to recapture and worse
treatment, if possible, than before.
But we are anticipating. As soon as Captain Jordan learned who his
prisoner was he was much elated, but Conyngham’s own journal gives an
account of these trying days in the following picturesque language:
“On first going aboard the ship I was abused by a Mr. Cooper, who acted
as first lieutenant and took my commission. He sent every one, without
exception, to the hold. After some time a message came for ‘Captain
Conyngham,’ and I was introduced in the gun-room to the purser of the
ship, Mr. Thomas, surgeon of the ship, and Mr. Murray, master. After
some little time Mr. Cooper, the lieutenant, makes his appearance. I
find his behavior different from what I had reason to expect, and I am
made to understand it is the captain’s orders to be treated well and
granted the liberty of his quarter-deck. The officers and men still in
the hold. Very disagreeable, so warm. The following day, Mr. Waln, my
first lieutenant; Mr. Heyman, second lieutenant; Mr. Lewis, captain of
marines; Mr. Downey, master, relieved from the hold and given liberty
of the lower decks. Mr. Campbell, a prize-master, ordered into irons.
“Upon our arrival in New York, Mr. Waln was sent on board the flagship
to see the Commodore, Sir George Collier. Mr. Waln told me on his
return that he was solicited to enter on board the ship. What an honor,
to walk his Majesty’s quarter-deck! Mr. Waln declared he would not,
that he was a prisoner. The answer was made, ‘You shall go, then, to
England with Mr. Conyngham,’ and he was dismissed. I soon learned by
Mr. Cooper that my people were to be distributed among the men-of-war.
Boats came alongside with officers for the prisoners. One officer in
particular, by his appearance a lieutenant, an Irishman, addressed me
in these words: ‘So, Mr. Conyngham, you have prospered long and in
different stages?’ I answered him, ‘Not so many or so long.’ After some
hesitation he walked off.
“The crew and officers were sent on board different men-of-war, as I
understood, after many threatenings to get them to enter the English
service. Most of them were sent on board the prison ship with the
officers. After being in the East River, I was detained on board the
Galatea myself, with one leg in irons. I petitioned Captain Read to
alter my situation, asking if possible to be put along with other
American prisoners. In a short time I was sent to the provost prison
with officers and guard of marines. Upon application he conducted me to
the condemned room, where was one person that was in on suspicion of
being concerned in theft, another supposed to be a spy. It was a dismal
prospect. At six in the evening the provost master, a Mr. Cunningham,
came to see me. I begged to know the reason of such usage. He said his
order was to put me in the strongest room, without the least morsel
of bread from the jailer; water I had given to me. The Continental
prisoners found a method through the keyhole of the door to convey me
some necessaries of life, although a second door obstructed the getting
in of very much.
“At the end of the week I was let out of this room and introduced into
the Congress room by Mr. Cunningham. I was then given the liberty of
the prison.
“On the 17th of June a deputy sergeant, a Mr. Gluby, desired I should
get ready to go on board the prison ship. After some little time Mr.
Lang came to the door, called to me, and I took my leave of my fellow
prisoners. Went down stairs, and was conveyed to another private
apartment. There a large heavy iron was brought with two large links,
and ring welded on. I was linked to the jail door, and when released
found it almost impossible to walk. Got into a cart that was provided
for that purpose, and led to waterside by the hangman. Then I was taken
in a boat alongside of the Commodore Sir George Collier, his ship being
the Raisonable. There I was shown an order to take me on board the
packet in irons, signed ‘Jones.’ Up to this time I was made to believe
I was going on board the prison ship.”
So it was evident to Conyngham that the English were about to redeem,
if possible, their threat of seeing him dance at the yard-arm, and that
he was going to be taken to England for trial. On the 20th of June he
sailed in the packet under the convoy of the Camilla, and, still in
irons and in close confinement, he applied to the captain to have the
links taken off his legs and arms. After some time this was done, and
he was allowed a half an hour a day on deck to get the air.
On the 7th of July the packet arrived in Falmouth harbor and the
prisoners were taken off in the press boats. A Captain Bult came on
board and read an order from Sir George Collier, the purport of which
was that Conyngham should be put in close confinement in Pendennis
Castle until the wishes of the Lords of the Admiralty were known.
On his way to the castle he was gazed upon by the large crowds that had
collected, as it had become noised about that “Conyngham the pirate”
had been taken.
It was evident that the authorities wished to prove that Conyngham was
still a subject of King George, for many times men were brought to see
him in an attempt to identify him. On one occasion a woman was admitted
to see him, so he records in his diary, who promised that he would
be released if he acknowledged that he was her husband. Of course he
indignantly repudiated such a trick, and discovered subsequently that
her husband was a man who some years before had been accused of murder
and had escaped out of the country.
Every night poor Conyngham was put in irons, and his diary is but a
record of hardships and suffering. Curious people came in day after day
to gaze at the prisoner, and yet there was no prospect of his being
brought to trial.
On the 23d of July we find an entry as follows:
“A sailor declared in Falmouth before different people that he could
take his oath that I was with Captain Jones when he threatened to set
White Haven on fire. This was told me by Sergeant Williams of the
guard, and this day the irons on my hands were beat close to my wrists.”
On the 24th of the month Conyngham was moved from the castle to the
celebrated Mill prison. For the first time the irons were taken
off when he was placed aboard the vessel that was to convey him to
Plymouth, where immediately he was transferred to Mill prison. For a
few days he was confined in what was known as the “Black Hole,” an
underground dungeon without either light or air. It was not until the
7th of August that he was brought out for a preliminary trial, and then
he was committed again to the prison by the justices of the peace, on
the charge of high treason.
All this time Conyngham was planning to escape. Not an opportunity went
by that he did not seize upon to extend his plans. After his being
remanded on the high-treason charge, strange to say, his treatment
improved and he was allowed the liberty of the jail-yard, and found
opportunity on one or two occasions to converse with some of his
fellow prisoners. Many of them were Frenchmen, who had been taken
in the actions with the French fleet. On one occasion a battle was
fought within hearing of Plymouth, and the soldiers and inhabitants,
fearing that the French were going to attempt to land, began to throw
up earthworks and entrenchments along the water front. Among the
prisoners that were brought in was a Frenchman who had served in the
capacity of surgeon on one of the captured vessels. He was a man of
education, and his clothes were of a better character and texture than
those of the other prisoners, who were mostly common seamen. He spoke
no English, however, and Conyngham had to talk with him in French. Now
it happened that the prison doctor, who made his round of visits every
day, was a short, slight man, something of the young captain’s general
build and appearance. The clothes he wore were black, and he usually
carried a book under his arm in which he kept a record of his patients
and their condition. It suggested itself to Conyngham that it might be
easy for the Frenchman so to disguise himself that he might be taken
for the doctor, and by walking out boldly past the sentries in the
evening gain the outside of the prison walls and conceal himself in the
town.
“All you need,” Conyngham observed, speaking in French, “is a pair of
huge horn spectacles, pull your hat well down over your eyes, and walk
out of the door. I’ve studied the doctor’s gait--he walks like this----”
Suiting the action to the word, Conyngham gave a very good imitation of
the English doctor’s mincing step. The Frenchman laughed.
“My faith!” he exclaimed, “it is it to the life! I have observed him.
But remember this, my friend; I speak no English and would be helpless;
they would discover me at once.”
A day or so later the Frenchman and Conyngham met again in the
jail-yard. The latter motioned his friend aside to where one of the
stone buttresses hid them from the sight of the sentry who was
watching the yard.
“Here,” said the captain; “with this wire I have made a pair of
spectacles, and in the evening no one would notice that there is not
glass inside the rims.”
As he spoke he placed the wire upon his nose, drew down his upper lip,
and the Frenchman looked at him and laughed.
“My faith!” he said again, “it is the doctor to the life.” And then,
as if an idea had suddenly dawned upon him, he touched Conyngham on
the shoulder. “It is you who should try it,” he said. “You shall have
my clothes. I can give them to you piece by piece, and as they have
allowed me to keep some others I shall not miss them.”
At first Conyngham demurred, but the Frenchman was insistent, and so
the next night and the next transfers were made unobserved in the
jail-yard, and the captain secreted the clothing inside the mattress
upon which he slept on the floor of his cell. From another prisoner
a hat was obtained almost like the heavy three-cornered affair that
the visiting doctor wore. A book was procured somewhat resembling the
doctor’s.
Saturday evening was set for a trial of the plan. Conyngham was most
anxious to get away. He had, by his trick of reading people’s lips,
discovered that there was a plot on foot to convict him if possible of
the charge that hung over his head. A man had been found who swore that
he had known him in Ireland, and another who had positively identified
him as his brother. If they could prove the contention that he was a
British subject he would have short shrift of it, so it behooved him
not to put off long the attempted escape.
Saturday afternoon at about five o’clock the prisoners were released
in batches of ten or a dozen for exercise in the courtyard. When the
door of Conyngham’s cell was opened he feigned indisposition, and asked
only to be allowed to sit in the doorway where he could breathe the
fresher air; but no sooner had the turnkey left than he quickly donned
the Frenchman’s black small-clothes and the long coat, and putting on
the spectacles and the big hat he stepped out into the corridor that
opened into the yard. Imitating carefully the doctor’s step and holding
the book under his arm, instead of turning to the left he went down the
corridor to the right, at the end of which stood the first sentry at
the entrance to the guard-room. It was dark in the corridor, and what
light there was came from behind him. The sentry hardly looked at him;
turning the key and pulling the bolt, he let him pass.
He was now in the room that was occupied by the soldiers whose special
duty was to watch the prisoners and to patrol the outer walls, but the
room, by luck, was empty except for a sergeant, who, with his coat off
and his feet propped against the wall, sat snoring in a chair. At first
Conyngham was uncertain which of the two doors, that led out of the
apartment, to take. He chose the one to the right again, and opening
it came into another room where at the farther end three soldiers were
throwing dice. They paused in their game as he entered and looked up at
him. At first it appeared as if the one who was holding the dice-box
was about to address him, but one of his companions, with an oath,
exclaimed, “It’s only the doctor; go on with the game, you blockhead!”
and the men proceeded, rattling the dice and then tossing them on to
the bench. Conyngham walked past them and opened the door that led out
of the prison entrance, and here he had to go through a worse ordeal
than ever, for he came into the daylight, and there within twenty feet
of him stood the man on guard. He was in full regimentals, with his
long red coat and white cross-belts, and propped against him at an
attitude of attention was his loaded musket with the bayonet fixed.
Conyngham pulled the hat a little farther over his eyes, and opening
the imitation note-book he began muttering to himself the way he had
seen the doctor do. Closer and closer he came to the sentry. In his
imagination he could feel the man’s eyes looking through and through
him, and he thought he could detect a shuffling of his feet as if he
was stepping to intercept him.
He was past the sentry now, and thought he was over the worst of it
when the latter spoke.
“Halt there! The countersign!” the man demanded; but as if deaf
Conyngham walked on. “Halt there!” came the second hail.
It would never do to stop. Hastening his mincing steps and as if
oblivious of everything but his note-book, the supposed doctor walked
on. He even heard the sentry mutter, “Confound the old fool! I’d like
to send a ball after him.” He never turned his head.
Now he was free of the shadows of the prison walls. Before him
stretched a wide street running down to the town, and to the right
was a meadow, upon which were some trees, with benches under them. As
he concluded that it would be better not to trust his disguise any
further until after dark, he walked over to one of the benches, and,
still in the sight of the sentry, sat down and pretended to scribble
something in the note-book. In a few minutes the sun had sunk below a
bank of clouds in the west, and getting to his feet he walked toward a
little lane, intending to follow it until he could turn into the main
street some distance below. But here his good fortune deserted him.
On the very first corner stood a man with a basket on his arm. It was
a huckster who had been allowed the privilege of selling oranges and
small cakes in the prison-yard. Maybe the sense of security had caused
the captain to forget to imitate the doctor’s step. At all events, as
he approached the man with the basket the latter turned and looked at
him intently; then, after he had passed, the huckster walked quickly up
the lane, and when he had reached the common started at a run for the
prison gate.
“That Yankee pirate Conyngham is loose!” he cried. “I just met him
yonder at the corner.”
“You’re mad, man!” returned the sentry. “That was the doctor; he just
passed out.”
“It was not,” replied the orangeman hastily. “I know him well; it was
Conyngham in disguise.”
The sentry was about to call back into the guard-room when an officer
appeared. To him the excited orangeman repeated the news.
“We’ll see about this!” was the officer’s reply, and he despatched a
messenger at once to Conyngham’s cell. The fellow returned on the run.
“It is true, captain!” he cried. “Conyngham is not in his cell or the
yard, and the doctor is calling the sick list in the French division.”
An instant later a drum rolled and a scurrying squad of red-coated
soldiers hastened at double-quick down the main street toward the town.
They found the supposed doctor conversing with a merchant, at the door
of his shop, from whom he was asking directions and the time of the
next coach going to London, for there Conyngham knew of friends who
would help him, and the big city was the safest hiding-place, as shall
be hereinafter proved. It was useless to offer resistance, and without
a word he surrendered and was marched back to the prison gate.
That night, shorn of his good clothes and in double irons, he was
placed once more in the “Black Hole.” He dreamed that some one had
restored to him the lost commission, and that instead of being confined
as a pirate and a man supposed to be guilty of high treason, he had
been treated as an officer should be and accorded the privileges of
his position; but he awoke cold and stiff, with the knowledge that his
captors would now be harder upon him than ever, and, as he wrote in his
own diary, it was “a dismal prospect” again.