Thursday 30^th, Rainy this day and we are employed about getting all the Money we can to make our escape this night as we have a hole five feet deep and fourteen in length and Six round so that it being all finished we intended a push at about 12 o’Clock when we all got ready to go; the guard having information of our intentions rather then kill us as we came out, came into the Prison with ten Lanthorns and proceeded for the hole and catched two French men in it with lights to work they were carried off immediately to the Black hole and there close confined the Prison now being in an uproar as there were a great number a going such hoping and sciping [i.e., hopping and skipping] as we never saw before they placed Centinels over our works and thus we were secured: takeing all the Centinels out of the Prison from among us and placing twice the number all around us of the outside so we ended the first nights work of sorrow for us.¹