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CHAPTER XVIII
THE ADVENTURES OF ANDREW SHERBURNE
While we are on the subject of the treatment of American prisoners in
England, which forms a most grateful contrast to that which they
received in New York, Philadelphia, and other parts of America, we
will give an abstract of the adventures of another young man who was
confined in the Old Mill Prison at Plymouth, England. This young man
was named Andrew Sherburne. He was born at Rye, New Hampshire, on the
3oth of September, 1765.
He first served on the continental ship of war, Ranger, which shipped
a crew at Portsmouth, N. H. His father consented that he should go
with her, and his two half uncles, Timothy and James Weymouth, were on
board. There were about forty boys in the crew. Andrew was then in
his fourteenth year, and was employed as waiter to the boatswain. The
vessel sailed in the month of June, 1779. She took ten prizes and
sailed for home, where she arrived in August, 1779. Next year she
sailed again on another cruise, but was taken prisoner by the British
at Charleston, S. C., on the 12th of May, 1780.
"Our officers," says Sherburne, "were paroled and allowed to retain
their waiters. We were for several days entirely destitute of
provisions except muscles, which we gathered from the muscle beds. I
was at this time waiter to Captain Pierce Powers, master's mate of the
Ranger.
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