'
"Our preparations for leaving were completed by procuring a piece of
rope from an old cable that was stretched under the fo'castle of the
ship, * * * and wound around the cable to preserve it. We had each of
us packed our wearing apparel in a knapsack for each, made on board
the Old Jersey. I gave some of my apparel to the two Smiths. I stowed
in my knapsack a thick woolen sailor jacket, well lined, a pair of
thick pantaloons, one vest, a pair of heavy silver shoe buckles, two
silk handkerchiefs, four silver dollars, not forgetting a junk bottle
of rum, which we had purchased on board at a dear rate. Waterman had
stowed his apparel and other articles in his knapsack. Mine was very
heavy. It was fastened to my back with two very strong garters,
passing over my shoulders, and under each arm, and fastened with a
string to my breast, bringing my right and left garter in contact near
the centre.
"Thus equipt we were ready to commit ourselves to the watery element,
and to our graves, as many of our hardy fellow prisoners
predicted. The evening was as good an one as we could desire at that
season of the year, the weather was mild and hazy, and the night
extremely dark.
"It was arranged between Waterman and myself that after leaving the
ship we should be governed in our course by the lights on board the
ships and the responses of the sentinels on shore, and after arriving
on shore to repair near a dwelling house which we could see from the
Old Jersey in the day time, and spend the balance of the night in a
barn, but a few rods from the dwelling.
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