"The large number of prisoners confined in this house, near 300,
together with a scanty allowance of provisions, occasioned it to be
very sickly. * * * George Barnard, who had been a midshipman on the
Hancock, and who was confined in the same room as myself, concerted a
plan to release us, which was to be effected by digging a small
passage under ground, to extend to a garden that was behind the
prison, and without the prison wall, where we might make a breach in
the night with safety, and probably all obtain our liberty. This plan
greatly elated our spirits, and we were anxious to proceed immediately
in executing it.
"Our cabins were built one above another, from the floor to the height
of a man's head; and mine was pitched upon to be taken up; and six of
us agreed to do the work, whose names were George Barnard, William
Atkins, late midshipmen in the Hancock; Lemuel Towle of Cape Ann,
Isaiah Churchill of Plymouth; Asa Cole of Weathersfield, and myself.
"We took up the cabin and cut a hole in the plank underneath. The
sugar house stood on a foundation of stone which raised the floor four
feet above the ground, and gave us sufficient room to work, and to
convey away the dirt that we dug up.
"The instruments that we had to work with were one scraper, one long
spike, and some sharp sticks; with these we proceeded in our difficult
undertaking.
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