"A similar petition was presented to the House of Peers by the Duke of
Richmond, and these petitions occasioned considerable debate in both
Houses. Several motions were grounded on these petitions, but to
those proposed by the Lords and gentlemen in the opposition, were
determined in the negative, and others to _exculpate_ the
Government in this business were resolved in the affirmative. It
appeared upon inquiry, that the American prisoners were allowed a half
pound of bread less per day than the French and Spanish prisoners. But
the petitions of the Americans produced no alterations in their favor,
and the conduct of the Administration was equally unpolitic and
illiberal. The additional allowance, which was solicited on behalf of
the prisoners, could be no object, either to Government or to the
Nation, and it was certainly unwise, by treating American prisoners
worse than those of France or Spain, to increase the fatal animosity
which had unhappily taken place between the mother country and the
Colonies, and this, too, at a period when the subjugation of the
latter had become hopeless."
CHAPTER XIX
MORE ABOUT THE ENGLISH PRISONS--MEMOIR OF ELI BICKFORD--CAPTAIN
FANNING
Eli Bickford, who was born on the 29th of September, 1754, in the town
of Durham, N. H., and enlisted on a privateer, was taken prisoner by
the British, confined at first on the Old Jersey, and afterwards sent
to England with many others, in a vessel commanded by Captain
Smallcorn, whom he called "a sample of the smallest corn he had ever
met.
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