* * *
Patrick’s first prison cell was nowhere near as bad as the one he was currently residing in. The people demanded of their king that mercy be shown on debtors and the poor. More and more, the king and his parliament were expected to pay for people’s incarceration. Initially, debtors would be charged room and board at a private facility in addition to the debt they owed. Families on the outside were expected to work harder or sell off their belongings to pay off the debt for their imprisoned loved ones as fast as they could so as to not incur an insurmountable sum. The longer a prisoner was incarcerated, the larger and larger the debt grew due to daily fees. Once a prisoner's debt became too unmanageable, the private facility quickly realized they would not make a profit and moved the debtor to the king’s debtors’ prison. The government prison living conditions were terrible and Patrick resided in the most infamous of them all.
When he was young, Patrick's father read to him the illegal papers of the Enlightenment Doctrines. These ideas were radical and talked of such things as a man being born with rights and that these rights were not bestowed on him from king or church. His father told him, “As history has always shown, any government program will be run far worse than the private market would.”
The king’s prisons were no exception to this. The Crown begrudgingly spent as little as it could on these prisons. In times past, the king simply executed the troublesome, poor prisoners who were nuisances to him. Now, however, he was not so openly tyrannical. George the II wanted to give the appearance that he was a compassionate king, so he created social programs. He hoped to avoid the negative gossip in the socialite circles stirred by executing so many poor, non-violent subjects. He did not want to be publicly exposed as the tyrant he truly was. The king determined it was far easier to keep his subjects within his law if they felt a sympathetic ruler was hearing their concerns.
Recently, King George was pressured by powerful socialites to show compassion and extend his benevolence to the debtors’ prisons. Many subjects' families had at least one relative in these dungeons and this was a popular societal concern. But soon the king discovered he was quickly going broke being compassionate.
Patrick was imprisoned in September of 1728. When he was still in the private system of prisons, he met a good fellow named Robert Castell who was a publisher. Castell had published a book on architecture and he was imprisoned for the debts he incurred by publishing it. Robert told Patrick that there was so much excitement about the book, that private investors practically threw money at him through loans. The book was called The Villas of the Ancients and it focused on ancient Greek and Roman architecture. Greek and Roman architecture was then all the rage in upper-London society. Sadly, it was poorly timed. Robert took too long to release it and by the time it was published, the frenzy for Greek and Roman architecture had fallen out of fashion. The book was a total failure and Castell incurred a tremendous amount of debt.
Robert was a real nice fellow. Patrick and he quickly became friends. Patrick assumed he must have reminded Robert of a little brother or maybe a nephew, but never confirmed this notion. The young prisoner did not care what the reason was; a friend was welcome in this lonely place. They rotated watch so they could sleep safely and unmolested. Robert even taught Patrick to play chess in the dirt with some rocks he collected. He used to tell Patrick that this was the game of kings and royalty. It did help the time pass which dragged on. Patrick’s family never paid one shilling towards his debt. He imagined his mother and sisters needed everything they could get just to pay for rent and to put food on their table.
After they earned each other’s trust, Robert shared a secret with Patrick. The day he was incarcerated he dispatched a message to his friend James Edward Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe was a high-ranking military official and an old friend of Robert’s. Robert promised his old friend would help but sadly, before Oglethorpe could do anything for the men, Patrick and Robert were moved from the clean, private prison to the den of stench that was the king's debtors’ prison.
Upon entering their new cell, the offensive, dank stench announced the squalid condition immediately. Robert pleaded with the guard to move them back to their private jails. Angered by this request, the vindictive, cruel guard had Patrick and Robert moved to the filthiest, most infested cell in the entire prison. The sadistic sentry seemed to enjoy prodding Robert and mockingly asked, "Will the privacy of this cell suit your delicate disposition, sir?" After the heavy, cell door clanged shut and the lock clicked, Patrick could hear the laughter of the guards echoing down the hall as they walked away.
This same watchman seemed to delight in torturing Robert. He would purposely add inmates to their dark cell whose minds were violent or touched with insanity. Among raving lunatics and violent men who were more like animals, Robert and Patrick had to fight just to keep a piece of moldy bread or a ladle of water. Many of these demented souls were murdered in their sleep, especially the ones who had lesions on the brain, who were touched and made mad. They so disgusted and annoyed the other prisoners, they were commonly strangled their first night in the cell.
Robert was surviving as well as expected until the corrupt, cruel guard decided to make their cell the infirmary for the smallpox victims. Robert soon fell sick from smallpox and died a terrible death shortly thereafter. The prison rumor mill told Patrick that when Oglethorpe finally arrived, he was furious about his friend Robert’s death. It took Patrick a while to piece all these fragments of information together but this is what he gleaned:
Oglethorpe had enough political favor to initiate an investigation of the jails after the death of his dear acquaintance Robert. He even boldly took a committee to investigate the king’s prisons. The findings were eventually reported to Parliament and the king, who were either truly shocked about the deplorable conditions or they faked their disgust well. When the news broke about the investigation, the subjects and powerful socialites demanded something be done immediately. Oglethorpe's report was used as a pawn in the political chess game and it caused a resounding rally cry for reform. In fact, the crooked jailor that made Patrick’s and Robert's lives hell was publicly called out and taken to trial. It was such big news; it made it into the monthly periodical and was not even censored away from the public.
Of course nothing really changed at Patrick’s jail. The officials merely cleaned up a few cells and a handful of prisoners, then invited the authorities to inspect their new "reformed" prison. Once the official inspections were over, the prison returned back to one giant pestilence and pox factory.
Over the years of his imprisonment, Patrick heard more of this Oglethorpe character attempting to reform the prisons. He heard Oglethorpe was so upset by Robert's death, that it ignited a burning in his soul for a sense of justice. The military officer lobbied Parliament to consider a Bill for Relief of Insolvent Debtors. Oglethorpe was also selected as a director of the Royal West Africa Company. Patrick later heard that Oglethorpe's directing of this company left a bitter taste in his mouth for slavery. Patrick even heard a strange rumor that Oglethorpe was trying to teach Indian heathens to accept Anglican beliefs. The thought of seeing all those savages wearing their feather headdresses in a church made him laugh heartily.
Eventually Oglethorpe and his friend, Lord Percival, came up with a notion to take all debtors’ and other prisoners in England and move them to the colonies in America. They made an appointment with King George II to bring this idea in front of him. Oglethorpe sold the idea that it would solve a few of the king’s problems with one move. He and Percival argued that the Royal colony of Charles Towne in South Carolina was being harassed by the Spanish and savages from Florida and that a new colony, a colony with a work force of convicted debtors, could act as a buffer against such attacks.
Oglethorpe went on to explain the advantages of having subtropical crops for the Crown to exploit. The fertile soil in that area was suitable for growing cash crops. The idea of relief
to his burdened treasury sold the king of the idea. Oglethorpe suggested that the king provide relief to the debtors and poor by removing them from England and freeing them to work in the colonies. He knew if all reason failed, he could appeal to his majesty’s purse. Oglethorpe closed the deal by appealing to the king's ego with one capital idea. He offered the king that if he would let him establish a new colony, Oglethorpe would name the territory after him and christen it "Georgia." The king loved the notion and instantly took all credit for the idea, like all politicians do.
So on June 8, 1732, the king signed the charter for the colony of Georgia. This charter planned for a clutch of politicians and board trustees, which would manage the colony for twenty-one years until it would be recognized as an official colony. Although the king and Parliament directly appointed these boards of trustees, they became hard to control due to the vast expanse of ocean between the colonies and the mother country. Corrupt dealings were wide spread on these trustee boards making many members very wealthy through nefarious side deals.
As with all governments through time, it was a game of rewarding one’s friends and punishing one’s enemies using the legitimacy of state powers. The first ship called the Anne, with a little over one hundred settlers, had landed in a place in Georgia called Savannah. They dropped anchor on February 12, 1733 and the settlers began working immediately. They were trying to build a viable infrastructure in the settlement before they opened the floodgates to all the prisoners about to be shipped over. Those first rooted and positioned properly, stood to make the most profit. Moving the debtors to America took a long while. Many of them fell ill and died of disease while waiting for their turn.
Shuffled from one squalid dungeon to another for years now, Patrick could not believe he had defied death for so long in that stew of filth. He had miraculously survived five whole years since the new colony of Georgia had been established, still clinging to hope and waiting for his turn across the pond. To entertain themselves, each day the guards would lie to Patrick saying that he was next to leave. The watchman continually promised everyone that they would be on the next ship leaving. Patrick had almost stopped believing there was even a place called Savannah and any hope of escape. The two friends he had made in his five-year nightmarish ordeal, were what kept him going.
Isaac Swartz had been brought here two years earlier owing massive gambling debts. Built like a bull, he was a Jew who was once employed as a debt collector. Swartz was in his late twenties and had scars all over his body from a lifetime of knife fighting and beatings. He was certain he would wake up dead if he did not make friends fast because he was so reviled. Over the years as a debt collector, Swartz had broken and beat many of the men he was now imprisoned with as a debtor himself. Patrick was too frightened of the hulking Isaac to point out the irony of it all. Since Isaac was so massive and strong he always seemed to get the horrid duty of dragging the corpses from the cell. The Jewish man was getting weaker with each body he moved to the fire pit because he was getting so emaciated and thin.
Patrick’s other friend was a wiry, Irish fellow named Shamus Red. He had flame crimson hair, ghost-white skin, freckles, and very few teeth. He had arrived about half a year ago after he took a large loan out to start a pub. Later he told Patrick more of the truth; Shamus was from a wealthy family and used their good name to obtain credit. His father was so infuriated, that he paid off the debt of the bar and then transferred the debt to his son. By king’s law, Shamus was now legally indebted to his father and could be held accountable for it. His father disowned his prodigal son and reported him to the collection agent. Soon after, Shamus ended up in the cell with Patrick, hopelessly waiting for his father to regret the decision and buy back his freedom.
Shamus made one fatal mistake when he opened his business; he forgot to calculate the cost of his love for the Devil’s firewater. The doors of his pub were only open a short time before Shamus ran out of beer and spirits. Some people are angry drunks, some people are happy drunks, Shamus was a generous drunk, and a fool. When he would become inebriated, he gave away too much of his stores. He made many friends, but little profits. The bar seemed to flourish with crowds every night but that was because the patrons knew if they got Shamus drunk, the drinks would flow freely all night. Like vultures, they would circle Shamus waiting for his speech to slur and his grin to grow wide, the tell tale sign that spirits were about to become free.
Neither Patrick nor Isaac knew how the Irishman was still alive. He was much thinner than the rest of the inmates and his breath smelled of rotten eggs and death as if he was a talking corpse. Patrick and Isaac theorized that Shamus must be surviving purely on his spirit. Even in this dung palace, he still smiled and joked like a man with no worries.
Pirates of Savannah Trilogy: Book One, Sold in Savannah - Young Adult Action Adventure Historical Fiction Page 3
