“At a time when the prisoners had despaired of any relief and began to reconcile themselves to their hard fate, they were very agreeably surprised to hear that Mr. Reuben G. Beasley had condescended to visit them and then waited at the gate for admittance. The idea that their deliverer had come diffused a general joy through the whole prison and ‘lighted up a smile in the aspect of woe.’ The soldiers and guards were ordered into the prison and turned out every man, both sick and well; overhauled the hammocks, swept the prison and opened the window-shutters; all filth was removed and everything made clean for the first time since our arrival. The guards were then stationed at the door, to prevent any prisoner from going in to have any communication with the Agent; we were told that no man could speak to him or have any communication with him whatever. At three o’clock the entrance of Mr. Beasley was announced by the turnkeys. We arranged ourselves in the yard in anxious expectation of the glad tidings he might bring. He appeared attended with his clerks, the clerks of the prison and a very numerous train of soldiers. As he entered the yard of the prison, we presented a frightful appearance, in our yellow uniforms, wooden shoes, and meagre lantern-jaws. He viewed the sight and seemed much surprised at the group. We stood in silent expectation; he moved along to the prison, but how were our feelings damped; at this moment! when we expected from him the language of consolation and relief, he only uttered in a careless tone to his clerks, that ‘he did not think that the number had been so great.’”
In December the cold increased, and the prisoners suffered acutely. Captain Cotgrave, the governor and superintendent, ordered the prisoners to turn out every morning at the hour of nine and stand in the yard till the guards counted them. This generally took more than an hour. Many prisoners were without stockings and some without shoes and many without jackets. They cut up their blankets to wrap up their feet and legs that they might be able to endure the cold snow while they were attending this ceremony. Complaints were numerous and this practice was denounced as much too severe for the prisoners but the superintendent pleaded his orders which as agent he was bound to obey. Yet there were painful incidents which should have touched the heart of any feeling man who saw them. Several of these naked men, chilled and benumbed with cold, and generally half-starved, fell down lifeless before him and in the presence of the guards and turnkeys. It was a cruelty exceeding murder to expose naked helpless creatures to perish in the pitiless blast of this bleak mountain side. “We remonstrated,” continues Andrews, “with the infamous author but all our applications and remonstrances were in vain; the wretch was inexorable; his feelings had become callous by continuing so long among the sufferings of the French prisoners. After these men had fallen down in the yard they were taken up and carried to the hospital and with some difficulty restored to life again; they were then immediately sent back to prison, there to lie on the stone floor without bed or covering.