I will give no
parole.'
"'Think better of it,' said Governor Tonyn, who was in command, 'a
second refusal of it will fix your destiny,--a dungeon will be your
future habitation.'
"'Prepare it then,' replied the inflexible patriot, 'I will give no
parole, so help me God!'
"And the petty tyrant did prepare it, and for forty-two weeks that
patriot, of almost threescore years of age, never saw the light of the
blessed sun, but lay incarcerated in the dungeon of the castle of St
Augustine. All the other prisoners accepted paroles, but they were
exposed to indignities more harrowing to the sensitive soul than close
confinement. When they were exchanged, in June, 1781, they were not
allowed even to touch at Charleston, but were sent to Philadelphia,
whither their families had been banished when the prisoners were taken
to the Sandwich. More than a thousand persons were thus exiled, and
husbands and wives, fathers and children, first met in a distant State
after a separation of ten months.
"Nearly all the soldiers taken prisoners at Charleston were confined
in prison ships in the harbor, where foul air, bad food, filth, and
disease killed hundreds of them. Those confined at Haddrell's Point
also suffered terribly. Many of them had been nurtured in affluence;
now far from friends and entirely without means, they were reduced to
the greatest straits.
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