The Deposition of Eliphalet Downer, surgeon, taken in the Yankee privateer, is as follows:

That after he was made prisoner by captains [George] Ross and [James] Hodge, who took advantage of the generous conduct of capt. [Henry] Johnson of the Yankee to them his prisoners, and of the confidence he placed in them, in consequence of that conduct and their assurances, he and his countrymen were closely confined, yet assured that on their arrival in port they should be set at liberty, and these assurances were repeated in the most solemn manner; instead of which, on their approach to land, they were, in the hot weather of August, shut up in a small cabin, the windows of which were spiked down and no air admitted, insomuch that they were all in danger of suffocation from the excessive heat. Three or four days after their arrival in the river Thames, they were relieved from this situation in the middle of the night, hurried on board a tender and sent down to Sheerness, where the deponent was put into the Ardent; and there falling sick of a violent fever, in consequence of such treatment, and languishing in that situation for sometime, he was removed, still sick, to the Mars; and, notwithstanding repeated petitions to be suffered to be sent to prison on shore, he was detained until having the appearance of a mortification on his legs, he was sent to Haslar hospital, from whence, after recovering his health, he had the good fortune to make his escape. While on board those ships and in the hospitals, he was informed and believes that many of his countrymen, after experiencing even worse treatment than he, were sent to the East Indies, and many of those taken at Quebec were sent to the coast of Africa, as soldiers.

Paris, March 30, 1777.