File:Historic fields and mansions of Middlesex (1874) (14755781716).jpg

Identifier: historicfieldsm00drak (find matches)
Title: Historic fields and mansions of Middlesex
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Subjects: Middlesex County (Mass.)--History Middlesex County (Mass.)--Description and travel
Publisher: J.R. Osgood and Company
Contributing Library: Thoreau Society Collections at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods
Digitizing Sponsor: Federally funded with LSTA funds through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

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emoval from prison into a publichospital as an assistant, and in the course of a year made hisescape to France. Not finding an immediate opportunity ofreturning to America, he entered on board the Alliance, thenfitting out at a French port for a cruise in the Channel. Shehad the good fortune to capture eighteen prizes. The Doctor then took ship for home, but on the passage hadthe ill-luck to again become a prisoner. The vessel in whichhe was fought for seven hours and a half, had both her mastsshot away, and fired her last round before she surrendered.Downer was severely wounded in the action by a grape-shot.He, with his fellow-prisoners, becames inmates of Portsea Prison,near Portsmouth, where, to use the Doctors own language, theywere worse treated than if they had fallen into the power ofsavages. The prisoners contrived to dig a hole under ground for a dis-tance of forty feet, their object being to pass under the prison-wall and into the street. This was effected with no other tool
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THE RETREAT FROM CONCORD. 401 than a jack-knife, and a sack to carry away the earth, which wasdeposited in an old chimney and beneath the floor. Only oneperson at a time could work at the excavation, which had to beprosecuted at certain hours of the day, as the noise at nightwould have discovered them to the sentinel who paced directlyabove the workmans head. Once they were betrayed, but, thegallery being at length completed, they cast lots for precedencein the order of escape. The Doctor was rather corpulent, andwhen his turn came he stuck fast in the passage, completelyblocking the way until it could be enlarged by the removal ofmore earth. Owing to the badness of the roads in that chalkycountry, made worse by rains, many of the fugitives were recap-tured and consigned to the black-hole. The Doctors friends — for Americans had friends even then in the heart of England — concealed him till an opportunity offered for him to crossover to France, from whence he made his way to Bosto

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