Artist’s rendering of the USRC James Madison
Lines of the US Revenue Cutter James Madison, drawn by noted naval architect and maritime historian Howard Chappelle.
vessels. Slaves were generally emancipated when they stepped foot on the deck of a British ship, but these men were never treated as such. The four men were transferred to the prison transport HMS Centurion moored at Halifax and confined in
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them onboard the cartel ship Diamond, which sailed under the white flag to New York.1 According to the New York Evening Post, “Among the prisoners arrived at New York, Tuesday, November 24, 1812, by Cartel Brig Diamond, are Captain Brooks and his officers of the Revenue Cutter Madison of Savannah.” As part of their parole, the officers were sworn never to engage in military action against British forces. No record exists of George Brooks ever serving again. The enlisted prisoners were not released, and their treatment was harsh. Most of the thirteen enlisted prisoners from the Barbadoes were sent to a military prison in Halifax. Located in Halifax Harbor, Melville Island Prison housed close to 10,000 prisoners during the War of 1812. Overcrowding and disease there caused the death of 195 Americans, who were buried on nearby Deadman’s Island. Nine of Madison’s enlisted men were held at Melville Island. The other four Madison crewmembers sent to Halifax were John Bulloch, Charles Bulloch, James Lewis Bulloch, and March Hart. Listed as “seamen,” research shows the four men were in fact slaves owned by Savannah’s mayor, William Bulloch, who stood to profit from their shares of captured
conditions so awful that the American prison agent registered a formal complaint. From HMS Centurion, they were returned to Bermuda to serve forced labor at the Royal Naval Dockyard as “King’s Slaves.” At least one died in captivity.
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A line of prison ships anchored in Portsmouth Harbor between 1812 and 1813, painted by Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783–1857), who was a French prisoner held by the British for eight years. Garneray was captured from a privateer seized by the British in 1806. He was imprisoned for part of that time in “pontons,” hulks aground in the mud, until his release in 1814 at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars.
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Cartel ships were used to exchange POWs, official dispatches, and mail under a flag of truce. To be identified as such, cartel vessels flew their own ensign aft on the main gaff or ensign staff, the enemy’s flag aloft on the main topmast, and the white flag of truce at the top of the fore topmast.
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