Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3
Resolved, That Mr. M’Kean and Mr. Paine be directed to examine the gaol and particularly the apartments where Kirkland, Connolly, Smith and Cameron are confined, and reported what is necessary to be done to have them safely and securely kept.1
Journals of the Continental Congress, 4:246
On Mar. 28, Congress had directed that John Connolly, John Smith, and Moses Kirkland, British military prisoners in the Philadelphia jail who were planning an escape, be held in solitary confinement “in separate apartments” and prevented from speaking with anyone without special orders from Congress. The “Committee for Prisoners” reported back to Congress on Apr. 6 commenting upon the “unprecedented severities” under which American prisoners had been detained by the British. It recommended that Connolly, Smith, Kirkland, and Allan Cameron be moved into the old Philadelphia jail “closely confined in separate apartments,” that Capt. Thomas Gamble not be exchanged at the present time, that Capt. Duncan Campbell be allowed to live with his family in Burlington, N.J., and that each colony be directed to “take especial care that none of those confined by order of the Congress be suffered to escape” (Journals of the Continental Congress, 4:239, 261–262).