Did you not succeed in obtaining his release ?" This refers to a certain Mr.Benjamin Burritt, an American prisoner of war.

Morse used every effort, through his friend Henry Thornton, to secure the release of Mr.Burritt.On December 30, 1813, he wrote to Mr.
Thornton from Bristol:-- RESPECTED SIR,--I take the liberty of addressing you in behalf of an American prisoner of war now in the Stapleton depot, and I address you, sir, under the conviction that a petition in the cause of humanity will not be considered by you as obtrusive.
The prisoner I allude to is a gentleman of the name of Burritt, a native of New Haven, in the State of Connecticut; his connections are of the highest respectability in that city, which is notorious for its adherence to Federal principles.

His friends and relatives are among my father's friends, and, although I was not, until now, personally acquainted with him, yet his face is familiar to me, and many of his relatives were my particular friends while I was receiving my education at Yale College in New Haven.

From that college he was graduated in the year ----.

A classmate of his was the Reverend Mr.Stuart, who is one of the professors of the Andover Theological Institution, and of whom, I think, my father has spoken in some of his letters to Mr.Wilberforce.
Mr.Burritt, after he left college, applied himself to study, so much so as to injure his health, and, by the advice of his physicians, he took to the sea as the only remedy left for him.