[Mill Prison, Plymouth, June 1778]
10th. By Mr. Sorrey1 we Learn we are to be Exchanged for English Prisoners in France, we all pray for it—
10th of June this Day the L. Prison was in a Great Uproar, Accation’d by two or three Drunken fellows who Disguised as often as they can get beer which is Every Donation Day2 this Day One Drawed his Knife unpon some Struck & Abused Others. Accordingly those Abused Enter’d a Complaint to the Agent,3 who, by the Desire of the principle part of the Prisoners was Order’d to the B[lack]. hole & put in Irons it was Wm. Smith Who to be Reveng’d Inform’d of a Bar in a Window that was cut off in Order to get out at; which was made fast again—
D, MeHi, Jonathan Haskins Journal.
1. Miles Saurey was the assistant to Deacon Robert Heath. These two men provided spiritual solace and relief for the prisoners at Mill Prison. Cohen, Yankee Sailors in British Gaols, 116–17.
2. This was the periodic distribution of a share of the almost £4,000 raised in England in Dec. 1777 and Jan. 1778 for prisoner relief. Ibid., 115–16.
3. William Cowdry, who supervised Mill Prison. The prisoners also complained to Dr. Walter Farquharson, a member of the Commission for Sick and Hurt Seamen that oversaw the prisons, during an inspection visit by Farquharson. That complaint was relayed to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty who, on 19 June, ordered that the knife-wielding prisoner be confined “to prevent his doing any Mischief to the other Prisoners.” Philip Stephens to the Commission for Sick and Hurt Seamen, 19 June 1778, UkGrNMM, Adm/M/404.