Before we leave the subject of Plymouth we must record the fact that some time in the year 1779 a prize was brought into the harbor captured from the French with 80 French prisoners. The English crew put in charge of the prize procured liquor, and, in company of some of the loose women of the town, went below to make a night of it. In the dead of night the Frenchmen seized the ship, secured the hatches, cut the cable, took her out of port, homeward bound, and escaped.
A writer in the London Gazette in a letter to the Lord Mayor, dated August 6th, 1776, says: “I was last week on board the American privateer called the Yankee, commanded by Captain Johnson, and lately brought into this port by Captain Ross, who commanded one of the West India sugar ships, taken by the privateer in July last: and as an Englishman I earnestly wish your Lordship, who is so happily placed at the head of this great city (justly famed for its great humanity even to its enemies), would be pleased to go likewise, or send proper persons, to see the truly shocking and I may say barbarous and miserable condition of the unfortunate American prisoners, who, however criminal they may be thought to have been, are deserving of pity, and entitled to common humanity.
“They are twenty-five in number, and all inhumanly shut close down, like wild beasts, in a small stinking apartment, in the hold of a sloop, about seventy tons burden, without a breath of air, in this sultry season, but what they receive from a small grating overhead, the openings in which are not more than two inches square in any part, and through which the sun beats intensely hot all day, only two or three being permitted to come on deck at a time; and then they are exposed in the open sun, which is reflected from the decks like a burning glass.
“I do not at all exaggerate, my lord, I speak the truth, and the resemblance that this barbarity bears to the memorable Black Hole at Calcutta, as a gentleman present on Saturday observed, strikes every eye at the sight. All England ought to know that the same game is now acting upon the Thames on board this privateer, that all the world cried out against, and shuddered at the mention of in India, some years ago, as practised on Captain Hollowell and other of the King’s good subjects. The putrid steams issuing from the hold are so hot and offensive that one cannot, without the utmost danger, breathe over it, and I should not be at all surprised if it should cause a plague to spread.
“The miserable wretches below look like persons in a hot bath, panting, sweating, and fainting, for want of air; and the surgeon declares that they must all soon perish in this situation, especially as they are almost all in a sickly state from bilious disorders.
“The captain and surgeon, it is true, have the liberty of the cabin (if it deserves the name of a cabin), and make no complaints on their own account. They are both sensible and well behaved young men, and can give a very good account of themselves, having no signs of fear, and being supported by a consciousness of the justice of their cause.
“They are men of character, of good families in New England, and highly respected in their different occupations; but being stripped of their all by the burning of towns, and other destructive measures of the present unnatural war, were forced to take the disagreeable method of making reprisals to maintain themselves and their children rather than starve. * * * English prisoners taken by the Americans have been treated with the most remarkable tenderness and generosity, as numbers who are safely returned to England most freely confess, to the honor of our brethern in the colonies, and it is a fact, which can be well attested in London, that this very surgeon on board the privateer, after the battle of Lexington, April 19th, 1775, for many days voluntarily and generously without fee or reward employed himself in dressing the King’s wounded soldiers, who but an hour before would have shot him if they could have come at him, and in making a collection for their refreshment, of wine, linen, money, etc., in the town where he lived. * * * The capture of the privateer was, solely owing to the ill-judged lenity and brotherly kindness of Captain Johnson, who not considering his English prisoners in the same light that he would French or Spanish, put them under no sort of confinement, but permitted them to walk the decks as freely as his own people at all times. Taking advantage of this indulgence the prisoners one day watched their opportunity when most of the privateer’s people were below, and asleep, shut down the hatches, and making all fast, had immediate possession of the vessel without using any force.”
What the effect of this generous letter was we have no means of discovering. It displays the sentiments of a large party in England, who bitterly condemned the “unnatural war against the Colonies.”
While we are on the subject of the treatment of American prisoners in England, which forms a most grateful contrast to that which they received in New York, Philadelphia, and other parts of America, we will give an abstract of the adventures of another young man who was confined in the Old Mill Prison at Plymouth, England. This young man was named Andrew Sherburne. He was born at Rye, New Hampshire, on the 3oth of September, 1765.
He first served on the continental ship of war, Ranger, which shipped a crew at Portsmouth, N. H. His father consented that he should go with her, and his two half uncles, Timothy and James Weymouth, were on board. There were about forty boys in the crew. Andrew was then in his fourteenth year, and was employed as waiter to the boatswain. The vessel sailed in the month of June, 1779. She took ten prizes and sailed for home, where she arrived in August, 1779. Next year she sailed again on another cruise, but was taken prisoner by the British at Charleston, S. C., on the 12th of May, 1780.
“Our officers,” says Sherburne, “were paroled and allowed to retain their waiters. We were for several days entirely destitute of provisions except muscles, which we gathered from the muscle beds. I was at this time waiter to Captain Pierce Powers, master’s mate of the Ranger. He treated me with the kindness of a father.”
“At this time,” he continues, “Captain Simpson and the other officers procured a small vessel which was employed as a cartel, to transport the officers, their boys and baggage, agreeably to the terms of capitulation, to Newport, R. I. It being difficult to obtain suitable casks for water they procured such as they could. These proved to be foul, and after we got to sea our water became filthy and extremely noxious. Very few if any on board escaped an attack of the diarrhoea.”
After his return he next shipped under Captain Wilds on the Greyhound, from Portsmouth, N. H., and at last, after many adventures, was taken prisoner by Newfoundlanders, off Newfoundland. He was then put on board the Fairy, a British sloop of war, commanded by Captain Yeo, “a complete tyrant” “Wilds and myself,” he continues, “were called to the quarter deck, and after having been asked a few questions by Captain Yeo, he turned to his officers and said: ‘They are a couple of fine lads for his Majesty’s service. Mr. Gray, see that they do their duty.’”
When the sloop arrived in England the boys complained that they were prisoners of war, in consequence of which they were sent to the Old Mill Prison at Plymouth, accused of “rebellion, piracy, and high treason.”
Here they found acquaintances from Portsmouth, N. H. The other prisoners were very kind to young Sherburne, gave him clothing and sent him to a school which was kept in the prison. Ship building and other arts were carried on in this place, and he learned navigation, which was of great service to him in after life.
The fare, he declared, was tolerably good, but there was not enough of it. He amused himself by making little toy ships. He became ill and delirious, but recovered in time to be sent to America when a general exchange of prisoners was effected in 1781. The rest of his adventures has nothing to do with prisons, in England, and shall not now be detailed.
Although the accounts of the English prisons left by Herbert, Sherburne and others are so favorable, yet it seems that, after the year 1780, there was some cause of complaint even there. We will quote a passage from the British Annual Register to prove this statement. This passage we take from the Register for 1781, page 152.
“A petition was presented to the House the same day (June 20th) by Mr. Fox, from the American prisoners in Mill Prison, Plymouth, setting forth that they were treated with less humanity than the French and Spanish, though by reason that they had no Agent established in this country for their protection, they were entitled to expect a larger share of indulgence than others. They had not a sufficient allowance of bread, and were very scantily furnished with clothing.
“A similar petition was presented to the House of Peers by the Duke of Richmond, and these petitions occasioned considerable debate in both Houses. Several motions were grounded on these petitions, but to those proposed by the Lords and gentlemen in the opposition, were determined in the negative, and others to exculpate the Government in this business were resolved in the affirmative. It appeared upon inquiry, that the American prisoners were allowed a half pound of bread less per day than the French and Spanish prisoners. But the petitions of the Americans produced no alterations in their favor, and the conduct of the Administration was equally unpolitic and illiberal. The additional allowance, which was solicited on behalf of the prisoners, could be no object, either to Government or to the Nation, and it was certainly unwise, by treating American prisoners worse than those of France or Spain, to increase the fatal animosity which had unhappily taken place between the mother country and the Colonies, and this, too, at a period when the subjugation of the latter had become hopeless.”
Eli Bickford, who was born on the 29th of September, 1754, in the town of Durham, N. H., and enlisted on a privateer, was taken prisoner by the British, confined at first on the Old Jersey, and afterwards sent to England with many others, in a vessel commanded by Captain Smallcorn, whom he called “a sample of the smallest corn he had ever met.” While on board this vessel he was taken down with the smallpox. No beds or bedding were provided for the prisoners and a plank on deck was his only pillow. He and his fellow sufferers were treated with great severity, and insulted at every turn. When they reached England they were sent to prison, where he remained in close confinement for four years and six months.
Finding a piece of a door hinge, he and some of the others endeavored to make their escape by digging a passage under the walls. A report of their proceedings reached the jailer, but, secure in the strength of the walls he did not believe it. This jailor would frequently jest with Bickford on the subject, asking him when he intended to make his escape. His answers were so truthful and accurate that they served to blind the jailor still further. One morning as this official entered the prison he said: “Well, Bickford, how soon will you be ready to go out?”
“Tomorrow night!” answered Bickford.
“O, that’s only some of your nonsense,” he replied.
However, it was true.
After digging a passage for some days underground, the prisoners found themselves under an adjoining house. They proceeded to take up the brick floor, unlocked the door and passed out, without disturbing the inmates, who were all asleep. Unable to escape they concealed themselves for awhile, and then tamely gave themselves up. Such a vigilant watch was kept upon the house after they were missed from the prison, that they had no other choice. So they made a contract with a man who was to return them to the prison, and then give them half of the reward of forty shillings which was offered for their re-capture. So successful was this expedient that it was often put into operation when they needed money.
As a punishment for endeavoring to escape they were confined in the Black Hole for a week on bread and water.
Bickford describes the prison regulations for preserving order which were made and carried out by the prisoners themselves. If a difficulty arose between two of them it was settled in the following manner. The prisoners formed a circle in the centre of which the disputants took their stand, and exchanged a few rounds of well-directed blows, after which they shook hands, and were better friends than before.
Bickford was not released until peace was declared. He then returned to his family, who had long thought him dead. It was on Sunday morning that he reached his native town. As he passed the meeting house he was recognized, and the whole congregation ran out to see and greet him.
He had but seven dollars as his whole capital when he married. He moved to Vermont, where he farmed a small place, and succeeded in making a comfortable livelihood. He attained the great age of 101, and was one of the last surviving prisoners of the Revolution.
THE ADVENTURES OF A NAVAL OFFICER
In the year 1806 a little book with this title was published in New York, by Captain Nathaniel Fanning. It was dedicated to John Jackson, Esquire, the man who did so much to interest the public in the preservation and interment of the remains of the martyrs of the prisonships in the Wallabout.
Fanning was born in Connecticut, in the year 1755. On the 26th of May, 1778, he went on board the brig Angelica, commanded by Captain William Dennis, which was about to sail on a six months cruise. There were 98 men and boys in the crew, and Fanning was prize-master on board the privateer. She was captured by the Andromeda, a frigate of 28 guns, five days from Philadelphia, with General Howe on board on his way back to England.
All the prisoners were paraded on deck and asked if they were willing to engage in his British Majesty’s service. Nearly all answered in the negative. They were then told that they were “a set of rebels,” and that it was more than probable that they would all be hung at Portsmouth.
Their baggage was then taken away, and they were confined in the hold of the ship. Their clothes were stolen by the sailors, and a frock and cheap trousers dealt out to each man in their place.
The heat was intolerable in the hold, although they went naked. In this condition they plotted to seize the vessel, and procured some weapons through the agency of their surgeon. Spencer, the captain’s clerk, betrayed them to the captain of the Andromeda, and, after that, the hatches were barred down, and they began to think that they would all die of suffocation. The sentence pronounced upon them was that they should be allowed only half a pint of water a day for each man, and barely food enough to sustain life.
Their condition would have been terrible, but, fortunately for them, they were lodged upon the water casks, over which was constructed a temporary deck. By boring holes in the planks they managed, by means of a proof glass, to obtain all the water they needed.
Between them and the general’s store room was nothing but a partition of plank. They went to work to make an aperture through which a man could pass into this store room. A young man named Howard from Rhode Island was their instigator in all these operations. They discovered that one of the shifting boards abaft the pump room was loose, and that they could ship and unship it as they pleased. When it was unshipped there was just room for a man to crawl into the store room. “Howard first went in,” writes Captain Fanning, “and presently desired me to hand him a mug or can with a proof glass. A few minutes after he handed me back the same full, saying ‘My friends, as good Madeira wine as ever was drank at the table of an Emperor!’
“I took it from his hands and drank about half a pint.
“Thus we lived like hearty fellows, taking care every night to secure provisions, dried fruit, and wines for the day following * * * and all without our enemies’ knowledge.”
Scurvy broke out among the crew, and some of the British sailors died, but the Americans were all “brave and hearty.”
“The Captain would say, ‘What! are none of them damned Yankees sick? Damn them, there’s nothing but thunder and lightning will kill ‘em.’” On the thirtieth of June the vessel arrived at Portsmouth. The prisoners were sent to Hazel hospital, to be examined by the Commissioners of the Admiralty, and then marched to Forton prison, where they were committed under the charges of piracy and high treason. This prison was about two miles from Portsmouth harbor, and consisted of two commodious buildings, with a yard between them large enough to parade a guard of 100 men, which was the number required to maintain law and order at the station.
They also had a spacious lot of about three quarters of an acre in extent, adjoining the houses, in which they took their daily exercise. In the middle of this lot was a shed with seats. It was open on all sides. The lot was surrounded by a wall of iron pickets, eight feet in height. The agent for American prisoners was nicknamed by them “the old crab.” He was very old and ugly.
Only three-fourths of the usual allowance to prisoners of war was dealt out to them, and they seem to have fared much worse than the inmates of the Old Mill Prison at Plymouth.
Captain Fanning declares that they were half starved, and would sometimes beg bones from the people who came to look at them. When they obtained bones they would dig out the marrow, and devour it. The guard was cruel and spiteful. One day they heated some pokers red hot and began to burn the prisoners’ shirts that were hung up to dry. These men begged the guard, in a very civil manner, not to burn all their shirts, as they had only one apiece. This remonstrance producing no effect they then ran to the pickets and snatched away their shirts. At this the officer on command ordered a sentinel to fire on them. This he did, killing one prisoner, and wounding several. There were three hundred American prisoners in the yard at this time.
These prisons appear to have been very imperfectly guarded, and the regular occupation of the captives, whenever their guards were asleep or absent, was to make excavations for the purpose of escaping. A great many regained their freedom in this manner, though some were occasionally brought back and punished by being shut up for forty days in the Black Hole on bread and water. Some, less fortunate, remained three or four years in the prison.
There was always digging going on in some part of the prison and as soon as one hole was discovered and plastered up, another would be begun. For a long time they concealed the dirt that they took out of these excavations in an old stack of disused chimneys. The hours for performing the work were between eleven and three o’clock at night. Early in the morning they ceased from their labors, concealing the hole they had made by pasting white paper over it.
There was a school kept constantly in the prison, where many of them had the first opportunity that had ever been granted them of receiving an education. Many learned to read and write, and became proficient in French.
At one time there were 367 officers confined in this place. In the course of twelve months 138 of them escaped and got safely to France. While some of the men were digging at night, others would be dancing to drown the noise. They had several violins, and seem to have been a reckless and jovial set.
The officers bunked on the second floor over the guard room of the English officers. At times they would make so much noise that the guard would rush up the stairs, only to find all lights out and every man asleep and snoring in his hammock. They would relieve their feelings by a volley of abusive language and go down stairs again, when instantly the whole company would be on their feet, the violins would strike up, and the fun be more fast and furious than ever. These rushes of the guard would sometimes be repeated several times a night, when they would always find the prisoners in their hammocks. Each hammock had what was called a “king’s rug,” a straw bed, and pillow.
At one time several men were suddenly taken sick, with strong symptoms of poison. They were removed to the hospital, and for a time, there was great alarm. The prisoners feared that “the same game was playing here as had been done on the Old Jersey, where we had heard that thousands of our countrymen had died.” The poison employed in this instance was glass pounded fine and cooked with their bread.
An English clergyman named Wren sympathized strongly with the prisoners and assisted them to escape. He lived at Gosport, and if any of the captives were so fortunate as to dig themselves out and succeed in reaching his house, they were safe. This good man begged money and food for “his children,” as he called them.
On the second of June, 1779, 120 of them were exchanged. There were then 600 confined in that prison. On the 6th of June they sailed for Nantes in France. The French treated them with great kindness, made up a purse for them, and gave them decent clothing.
Fanning next went to L’Orient, and there met John Paul Jones, who invited him to go on board the Bon Homme Richard as a midshipman. They sailed on the 14th of August on the memorable expedition to the British Channel.
After being with Jones for some time Fanning, on the 23rd of March, 1781, sailed for home in a privateer from Morlaix, France. This privateer was captured by the English frigate, Aurora.
“Captain Anthon and myself and crew,” writes Mr. Fanning, “were all ordered to a prison at about two miles from Falmouth. The very dirtiest and most loathsome building I ever saw. Swarms of lice, remarkably fat and full grown; bed bugs, and fleas. I believe the former were of Dutch extraction, as there were confined here a number of Dutch prisoners of war, and such a company of dirty fellows I never saw before or since.”
Yet these same poor fellows ceded to Captain Anthon and Mr. Fanning a corner of the prison for their private use. This they managed to get thoroughly cleansed, screened themselves off with some sheets, provided themselves with large swinging cots, and were tolerably comfortable. They were paroled and allowed full liberty within bounds, which were a mile and a half from the prison. In about six weeks Fanning was again exchanged, and went to Cherbourg in France, where he met Captain Manly, who had just escaped from the Mill prison after three years confinment.
Very little is known of the State navies of the south during the Revolution. Each State had her own small navy, and many were the interesting adventures, some successful, and others unfortunate, that the hardy sailors encountered. The story of each one of these little vessels would be as interesting as a romance, but we are here only concerned with the meagre accounts that have reached us of the sufferings of some of the crews of the privateers who were so unlucky as to fall into the hands of the enemy.
In the infant navy of Virginia were many small, extremely fleet vessels. The names of some of the Virginia ships, built at Gosport, Fredericksburg, and other Virginia towns, were the Tartar, Oxford, Thetis, Virginia, Industry, Cormorant, Loyalist (which appears to have been captured from the British), Pocohontas, Dragon, Washington, Tempest, Defiance, Oliver Cromwell, Renown, Apollo, and the Marquis Lafayette. Virginia also owned a prisonship called the Gloucester. Brigs and brigantines owned by the State were called the Raleigh, Jefferson, Sallie Norton, Northampton, Hampton, Greyhound, Dolphin, Liberty, Mosquito, Rochester, Willing Lass, Wilkes, American Fabius, Morning Star, and Mars. Schooners were the Adventure, Hornet, Speedwell, Lewis, Nicholson, Experiment, Harrison, Mayflower, Revenge, Peace and Plenty, Patriot, Liberty, and the Betsy. Sloops were the Virginia, Rattlesnake, Scorpion, Congress, Liberty, Eminence, Game-Cock, and the American Congress. Some of the galleys were the Accomac, Diligence, Hero, Gloucester, Safeguard, Manly, Henry, Norfolk, Revenge, Caswell, Protector, Washington, Page, Lewis, Dragon, and Dasher. There were two armed pilot boats named Molly and Fly. Barges were the York and Richmond. The Oxford, Cormorant, and Loyalist were prizes. The two latter were taken from the English by the French and sold to Virginia.
What an interesting book might be written about this little navy! Nearly all were destined to fall at last into the hands of the enemy; their crews to languish out the remainder of their days in foul dungeons, where famine and disease made short work of them. Little remains to us now except the names of these vessels.
The Virginia was built at Gosport. The Dragon and some others were built at Fredericksburg. Many were built at Norfolk.
The Hermit was early captured by the British. The gallant little Mosquito was taken by the Ariadne. Her crew was confined in a loathsome jail at Barbadoes. But her officers were sent to England, and confined in Fortune jail at Gosport. They succeeded in escaping and made their way to France. The names of these officers were Captain John Harris; Lieutenant Chamberlayne; Midshipman Alexander Moore; Alexander Dock, Captain of Marines; and George Catlett, Lieutenant of Marines.
The Raleigh was captured by the British frigate Thames. Her crew was so shamefully maltreated that upon representations made to the Council of State upon their condition, it was recommended that by way of retaliation the crew of the Solebay, a sloop of war which had fallen into the hands of the Americans, should be visited with the like severe treatment. To what extent this was carried out we cannot discover.
The Scorpion was taken by the British in the year 1781, a fatal year for the navy of Virginia.
In the year 1857 an unsigned article on the subject of the Virginia Navy was published in the Southern Literary Messenger, which goes on to say: “But of all the sufferings in these troublous times none endured such horrors as did those Americans who were so unfortunate as to become prisoners of war to the British. They were treated more as felons than as honorable enemies. It can scarcely be credited that an enlightened people would thus have been so lost to the common instincts of humanity, as were they in their conduct towards men of the same blood, and speaking the same language with themselves. True it is they sometimes excused the cruelty of their procedures by avowing in many instances their prisoners were deserters from the English flag, and were to be dealt with accordingly. Be this as it may, no instance is on record where a Tory whom the Americans had good cause to regard as a traitor, was visited with the severities which characterized the treatment of the ordinary military captives, on the part of the English authorities. * * * The patriotic seamen of the Virginia navy were no exceptions to the rule when they fell into the hands of the more powerful lords of the ocean. They were carried in numbers to Bermuda, and to the West Indies, and cast into loathsome and pestilential prisons, from which a few sometimes managed to escape, at the peril of their lives. Respect of position and rank found no favor in the eyes of their ungenerous captors, and no appeal could reach their hearts except through the promises of bribes. Many languished and died in those places, away from country and friends, whose fate was not known until long after they had passed away. But it was not altogether abroad that they were so cruelly maltreated. The record of their sufferings in the prisons of the enemy, in our own country, is left to testify against these relentless persecutors.
“In New York and Halifax many of the Virginian officers and seamen were relieved of their pains, alone by the hand of death; and in their own State, at Portsmouth, the like fate overtook many more, who had endured horrors rivalled only by the terrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta. * * * The reader will agree that we do not exaggerate when he shall have seen the case as given under oath by one who was in every respect a competent witness.
“It will be remembered that, in another part of this narrative, mention was made of the loss in Lynhaven Bay of the galley Dasher, and the capture of the officers and the crew. Captain Willis Wilson was her unfortunate commander on that occasion. He and his men were confined in the Provost Jail at Portsmouth, Virginia, and after his release he made public the ‘secrets’ of that ‘Prison House,’ by the following deposition, which is copied from the original document.
“‘The deposition of Willis Wilson, being first sworn deposes and sayeth: That about the 23rd July last the deponent was taken a prisoner of war; was conducted to Portsmouth (Virginia) after having been plundered of all his clothing, etc., and there lodged with about 190 other prisoners, in the Provost. This deponent during twenty odd days was a spectator to the most savage cruelty with which the unhappy prisoners were treated by the English. The deponent has every reason to believe there was a premeditated scheme to infect all the prisoners who had not been infected with the smallpox. There were upwards of 100 prisoners who never had the disorder, notwithstanding which negroes, with the infection upon them, were lodged under the same roof of the Provost. Others were sent in to attend upon the prisoners, with the scabs of that disorder upon them.
“‘Some of the prisoners soon caught the disorder, others were down with the flux, and some from fevers. From such a complication of disorders ‘twas thought expedient to petition General O’Hara who was then commanding officer, for a removal of the sick, or those who were not, as yet, infected with the smallpox. Accordingly a petition was sent by Dr. Smith who shortly returned with a verbal answer, as he said, from the General. He said the General desired him to inform the prisoners that the law of nations was annihilated, that he had nothing then to bind them but bolts and bars, and they were to continue where they were, but that they were free agents to inoculate if they chose.
“‘About thirty agreed with the same Smith to inoculate them at a guinea a man; he performed the operation, received his guinea from many, and then left them to shift for themselves, though he had agreed to attend them through the disorder. Many of them, as well as those who took it in the natural way, died. Colonel Gee, with many respectable characters, fell victims to the unrelenting cruelty of O’Hara, who would admit of no discrimination between the officers, privates, negroes, and felons; but promiscuously confined the whole in one house. * * * They also suffered often from want of water, and such as they got was very muddy and unfit to drink.
“‘Willis Wilson.
“‘This day came before me Captain Willis Wilson and made oath that the above is true.
“‘Samuel Thorogood.’”
There is much of great interest in this article on the Virginia Navy which is not to our present purpose. The writer goes on to tell how, on one occasion, the ship Favorite, bearing a flag of truce, was returning to Virginia, with a number of Americans who had just been liberated or exchanged in Bermuda, when she was overhauled by a British man-of-war, and both her crew and passengers robbed of all they had. The British ships which committed this dastardly deed were the Tiger, of 14 guns, and the schooner Surprise, of 10 guns.
Captain James Barron, afterwards Commodore Barren, was the master spirit of the service in Virginia. One of the Virginian vessels, very appropriately named the Victory, was commanded by him, and was never defeated.
In 1781 Joseph Galloway wrote a letter to Lord Howe in which he says: “The rebel navy has been in a great measure destroyed by the small British force remaining in America, and the privateers sent out from New York. Their navy, which consisted, at the time of your departure, of about thirty vessels, is now reduced to eight, and the number of privateers fitted out in New England amounting to an hundred and upwards is now less than forty.”
BIRDSALL
At the risk of repetition of some facts that have already been given, we must again refer the reader to some extracts from the newspapers of the day. In this instance the truth can best be established by the mouths of many witnesses, and we do not hesitate to give the English side whenever we have been able to discover anything bearing on the subject in the so-called loyal periodicals of the time.
From Freeman’s Journal, date of Jan. 19th, 1777, we take the following:
“General Howe has discharged all the privates who were prisoners in New York. Half he sent to the world of spirits for want of food: the others he hath sent to warn their countrymen of the danger of falling into his hands, and to convince them by ocular demonstration, that it is infinitely better to be slain in battle, than to be taken prisoner by British brutes, whose tender mercies are cruelties.”
In the Connecticut Journal of Jan. 30th, 1777, is the following:
“This account of the sufferings of these unfortunate men was obtained from the prisoners themselves. As soon as they were taken they were robbed of all their baggage; of whatever money they had, though it were of paper; of their silver shoe buckles and knee buckles, etc.; and many were stripped almost of their clothes. Especially those who had good clothes were stripped at once, being told that such were ‘too good for rebels.’
“Thus deprived of their clothes and baggage, they were unable to shift even their linen, and were obliged to wear the same shirts for even three or four months together, whereby they became extremely nasty; and this of itself was sufficient to bring on them many mortal diseases.
“After they were taken they were in the first place put on board the ships, and thrust down into the hold, where not a breath of fresh air could be obtained, and they were nearly suffocated for want of air.
“Some who were taken at Fort Washington were first in this manner thrust down into the holds of vessels in such numbers that even in the cold season of November they could scarcely bear any clothes on them, being kept in a constant sweat. Yet these same persons, after lying in this situation awhile, till the pores of their bodies were as perfectly open as possible, were of a sudden taken out and put into some of the churches of New York, without covering, or a spark of fire, where they suffered as much by the cold as they did by the sweating stagnation of the air in the other situation; and the consequence was that they took such colds as brought on the most fatal diseases, and swept them off almost beyond conception.
“Besides these things they suffered severely for want of provisions. The commissioners pretended to allow a half a pound of bread, and four ounces of pork per day; but of this pittance they were much cut short. What was given them for three days was not enough for one day and, in some instances, they went for three days without a single mouthful of food of any kind. They were pinched to such an extent that some on board the ships would pick up and eat the salt that happened to be scattered there; others gathered up the bran which the light horse wasted, and eat it, mixed with dirt and filth as it was.
“Nor was this all, both the bread and pork which they did allow them was extremely bad. For the bread, some of it was made out of the bran which they brought over to feed their light horse, and the rest of it was so muddy, and the pork so damnified, being so soaked in bilge water during the transportation from Europe, that they were not fit to be eaten by human creatures, and when they were eaten were very unwholesome. Such bread and pork as they would not pretend to give to their own countrymen they gave to our poor sick dying prisoners.
“Nor were they in this doleful condition allowed a sufficiency of water. One would have thought that water was so cheap and plentiful an element, that they would not have grudged them that. But there are, it seems, no bounds to their cruelty. The water allowed them was so brackish, and withal nasty, that they could not drink it until reduced to extremity. Nor did they let them have a sufficiency of even such water as this.
“When winter came on, our people suffered extremely for want of fire and clothes to keep them warm. They were confined in churches where there were no fireplaces that they could make fires, even if they had wood. But wood was only allowed them for cooking their pittance of victuals; and for that purpose very sparingly. They had none to keep them warm even in the extremest of weather, although they were almost naked, and the few clothes they had were their summer clothes. Nor had they a single blanket, nor any bedding, not even straw allowed them until a little before Christmas.
“At the time those were taken on Long Island a considerable part of them were sick of the dysentery; and with this distemper on them were first crowded on board the ships, afterwards in the churches in New York, three, four or five hundred together, without any blankets, or anything for even the sick to lie upon, but the bare floors or pavements.
“In this situation that contagious distemper soon communicated from the sick to the well, who would probably have remained so, had they not in this manner been thrust in together without regard to sick or well, or to the sultry, unwholesome season, it being then the heat of summer. Of this distemper numbers died daily, and many others by their confinement and the sultry season contracted fevers and died of them. During their sickness, with these and other diseases, they had no medicines, nothing soothing or comfortable for sick people, and were not so much as visited by the physician for months together.
“Nor ought we to omit the insults which the humane Britons offered to our people, nor the artifices which they used to enlist them in their service to fight against their country. It seems that one end of their starving our people was to bring them, by dint of necessity, to turn rebels to their own country, their own consciences, and their God. For while thus famishing they would come and say to them: ‘This is the just punishment of your rebellion. Nay, you are treated too well for rebels; you have not received half you deserve or half you shall receive. But if you will enlist into his Majesty’s service, you shall have victuals and clothes enough.’
“As to insults, the British officers, besides continually cursing and swearing at them as rebels, often threatened to hang them all; and, on a particular time, ordered a number, each man to choose his halter out of a parcel offered, wherewith to be hanged; and even went so far as to cause a gallows to be erected before the prison, as if they were to be immediately executed.
“They further threatened to send them all into the East Indies, and sell them there for slaves.
“In these and numberless other ways did the British officers seem to rack their inventions to insult, terrify, and vex the poor prisoners. The meanest, upstart officers among them would insult and abuse our colonels and chief officers.
“In this situation, without clothes, without victuals or drink, or even water, or with those which were base and unwholesome; without fire, a number of them sick, first with a contagious and nauseous distemper; these, with others, crowded by hundreds into close confinement, at the most unwholesome season of the year, and continued there for four months without blankets, bedding, or straw; without linen to shift or clothes to cover their bodies;—No wonder they all became sickly, and having at the same time no medicine, no help of physicians, nothing to refresh or support nature, died by scores in a night, and those who were so far gone as to be unable to help themselves lay uncared for, till death, more kind than Britons, put an end to their misery.
“By these means, and in this way, 1,500 brave Americans, who had nobly gone forth in defence of their injured, oppressed country, but whom the chance at war had cast into the hands of our enemies, died in New York, many of whom were very amiable, promising youths, of good families, the very flower of our land; and of those who lived to come out of prison, the greater part, as far as I can learn, are dead or dying. Their constitutions are broken; the stamina of nature worn out; they cannot recover—they die. Even the few that might have survived are dying of the smallpox. For it seems that our enemies determining that even these, whom a good constitution and a kind Providence had carried through unexampled sufferings, should not at last escape death, just before their release from imprisonment infected them with that fatal distemper.
“To these circumstances we subjoin the manner in which they buried those of our people who died. They dragged them out of the prison by one leg or one arm, piled them up without doors, there let them lie until a sufficient number were dead to make a cart load, then loaded them up in a cart, drove the cart thus loaded out to the ditches made by our people when fortifying New York; there they would tip the cart, tumble the corpses together into the ditch, and afterwards slightly cover them with earth. * * * While our poor prisoners have been thus treated by our foes, the prisoners we have taken have enjoyed the liberty of walking and riding about within large limits at their pleasure; have been freely supplied with every necessary, and have even lived on the fat of the land. None have been so well fed, so plump, and so merry as they; and this generous treatment, it is said, they could not but remember. For when they were returned in the exchange of prisoners, and saw the miserable, famished, dying state of our prisoners, conscious of the treatment they had received, they could not refrain from tears.” Connecticut Journal, Jan. 30th, 1777.
In April of the year 1777 a committee that was appointed by Congress to inquire into the doings of the British on their different marches through New York and New Jersey reported that “The prisoners, instead of that humane treatment which those taken by the United States experienced, were in general treated with the greatest barbarity. Many of them were kept near four days without food altogether. * * * Freemen and men of substance suffered all that generous minds could suffer from the contempt and mockery of British and foreign mercenaries. Multitudes died in prison. When they were sent out several died in being carried from the boats on shore, or upon the road attempting to go home. The committee, in the course of their inquiry, learned that sometimes the common soldiers expressed sympathy with the prisoners, and the foreigners (did this) more than the English. But this was seldom or never the case with the officers, nor have they been able to hear of any charitable assistance given them by the inhabitants who remained in, or resorted to the city of New York, which neglect, if universal, they believe was never known to happen in any similar case in a Christian country.”
We have already shown that some of the citizens of New York, even a number of the profligate women of the town, did their best to relieve the wants of the perishing prisoners. But the guards were very strict, and what they could do was inadequate to remove the distresses under which these victims of cruelty and oppression died. As we are attempting to make this work a compendium of all the facts that can be gathered upon the subject, we must beg the reader’s indulgence if we continue to give corroborating testimony of the same character, from the periodicals of the day. We will next quote from the New Hampshire Gazette, date of February 4th, 1779.
“It is painful to repeat the indubitable accounts we are constantly receiving, of the cruel and inhuman treatment of the subjects of these States from the British in New York and other places. They who hear our countrymen who have been so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of those unrelenting tyrants, relate the sad story of their captivity, the insults they have received, and the slow, cool, systematic manner in which great numbers of those who could not be prevailed on to enter their service have been murdered, must have hearts of stone not to melt with pity for the sufferers, and burn with indignation at their tormentors. As we have daily fresh instances to prove the truth of such a representation, public justice requires that repeated public mention should be made of them. A cartel vessel lately arrived at New London in Connecticut, carrying about 130 American prisoners from the prison ships in New York. Such was the condition in which these poor creatures were put on board the cartel, that in the short run, 16 died on board; upwards of sixty when they were landed, were scarcely able to move, and the remainder greatly emaciated and enfeebled; and many who continue alive are never likely to recover their former health. The greatest inhumanity was experienced by the prisoners in a ship of which one Nelson, a Scotchman, had the superintendence. Upwards of 300 American prisoners were confined at a time, on board this ship. There was but one small fire-place allowed to cook the food of such a number. The allowance of the prisoners was, moreover, frequently delayed, insomuch that, in the short days of November and December, it was not begun to be delivered out until 11 o’clock in the forenoon so that the whole could not be served until three. At sunset the fire was ordered to be quenched; no plea from the many sick, from their absolute necessity, the shortness of the time or the smallness of the hearth, was allowed to avail. The known consequence was that some had not their food dressed at all; many were obliged to eat it half raw. On board the ship no flour, oatmeal, and things of like nature, suited to the condition of infirm people, were allowed to the many sick, nothing but ship-bread, beef, and pork. This is the account given by a number of prisoners, who are credible persons, and this is but a part of their sufferings; so that the excuse made by the enemy that the prisoners were emaciated and died by contagious sickness, which no one could prevent, is futile. It requires no great sagacity to know that crowding people together without fresh air, and feeding, or rather starving them in such a manner as the prisoners have been, must unavoidably produce a contagion. Nor is it a want of candor to suppose that many of our enemies saw with pleasure this contagion, which might have been so easily prevented, among the prisoners who could not be persuaded to enter the service.”
THE CASE OF CAPTAIN BIRDSALL
Soon after the battle of Long Island Captain Birdsall, a Whig officer, made a successful attempt to release an American vessel laden with flour for the army, which had been captured in the Sound by the British. Captain Birdsall offered, if the undertaking was approved of by his superior officer, to superintend the enterprise himself. The proposal was accepted, when Birdsall, with a few picked men, made the experiment, and succeeded in sending the vessel to her original destination. But he and one of his men fell into the hands of the enemy. He was sent to the Provost Jail under surveillance of “that monster in human shape, the infamous Cunningham.” He requested the use of pen, ink, and paper, for the purpose of acquainting his family of his situation. On being refused he made a reply which drew from the keeper some opprobious epithets, accompanied by a thrust from his sword, which penetrated the shoulder of his victim, and caused the blood to flow freely. Being locked up alone in a filthy apartment, and denied any assistance whatever, he was obliged to dress the wound with his own linen, and then to endure, in solitude and misery, every indignity which the malice of the Provost Master urged him to inflict upon a damned rebel, who, he declared, ought to be hung. “After several months of confinement and starvation he was exchanged.”
Two Whig gentlemen of Long Island were imprisoned in the Provost Prison some time in the year 1777. Two English Quakers named Jacob Watson and Robert Murray at last procured their release. Their names were George Townsend and John Kirk. Kirk caught the smallpox while in prison. He was sent home in a covered wagon. His wife met him at the door, and tenderly nursed him through the disorder. He recovered in due time, but she and her infant daughter died of the malady. There were hundreds of such cases: indeed throughout the war contagion was carried into every part of the country by soldiers and former prisoners. In some instances the British were accused of selling inoculated clothing to the prisoners. Let us hope that some, at least, of these reports are unfounded.
The North Dutch Church was the last of the churches used as prisons to be torn down. As late as 1850 it was still standing, and marks of bayonet thrusts were plainly to be discerned upon its pillars. How many of the wretched sufferers were in this manner done to death we have no means of discovering, but it must have been easier to die in that manner than to have endured the protracted agonies of death by starvation.
John Pintard, who assisted his uncle, Lewis Pintard, Commissioner for American prisoners in New York, thus wrote of their sufferings. It must be remembered that the prisoners taken in 1776 died, for the most part, before our struggling nation was able to protect them, before Commissioners had been appointed, and when, in her feeble infancy, the Republic was powerless to aid them.
“The prisoners taken on Long Island and at Fort Washington, sick, wounded, and well, were all indiscriminately huddled together, by hundreds and thousands, large numbers of whom died by disease, and many undoubtedly poisoned by inhuman attendants, for the sake of their watches or silver buckles.”
It was on the 20th of January, 1777, that Washington proposed to Mr. Lewis Pintard, a merchant of New York, that he should accept the position as resident agent for American prisoners. In May of that year General Parsons sent to Washington a plan for making a raid upon Long Island, and bringing off the American officers, prisoners of war on parole. Washington, however, disapproved of the plan, and it was not executed.
No one sympathized with the unfortunate victims of British cruelty more deeply than the Commander-in-chief. But he keenly felt the injustice of exchanging sound, healthy, British soldiers, for starved and dying wretches, for the most part unable even to reach their homes. In a letter written by him on the 28th of May, 1777, to General Howe, he declared that a great proportion of prisoners sent out by the British were not fit subjects for exchange, and that, being made so unfit by the severity of their treatment, a deduction should be made. It is needless to say that the British General refused this proposition.
On the 10th of June, 1777, Washington, in a long letter to General Howe, states that he gave clothing to the British prisoners in his care. He also declares that he was not informed of the sufferings of the Americans in New York until too late, and that he was refused permission to establish an agency in that city to purchase what was necessary to supply the wants of the prisoners.
It was not until after the battle of Trenton that anything could be done to relieve these poor men. Washington, by his heroism, when he led his little band across the half frozen Delaware, saved the lives of the small remnant of prisoners in New York. After the battle he had so many British and Hessian prisoners in his power, that he was able to impress upon the British general the fact that American prisoners were too valuable to be murdered outright, and that it was more expedient to keep them alive for purposes of exchange.
Rivington’s Gazette of Jan. 15th, 1779, contains this notice: “Privateers arriving in New York Harbor are to put their prisoners on board the Good Hope or Prince of Wales prison ships.
“James Dick.”
If the Jersey were in use at that time it must have been too crowded for further occupancy. But although there is frequent mention in the periodicals of the day of the prison ships of New York the Jersey did not become notorious until later.
On the 29th of June, 1779, Sir George Collier, in a notice in Rivington’s Gazette, forbids “privateers landing prisoners on Long Island to the damage and annoyance of His Majesty’s faithful servants.”
This order was no doubt issued, in fear of contagion, which fear led the British to remove their prison ships out of New York Harbor to the retired waters of Wallabout Bay, where the work of destruction could go on with less fear of producing a general pestilence.
In the issue for the 23rd of August, 1779, we read: “To be sold, The sails and rigging of the ship Good Hope. Masts, spars, and yards as good as new.”
Among the accounts of cruelty to the prisoners it is refreshing to come upon such a paragraph as this, from a New London, Conn. paper, dated August 18th, 1779. “Last week five or six hundred American prisoners were exchanged. A flag returned here with 47 American prisoners, and though taken out of the Good Hope prison ship, it must (for once) be acknowledged that all were very well and healthy. Only 150 left.”
The next quotation that we will give contains one of the first mentions of the Jersey as a prison ship, that we have been able to find.
“New London, Sept. 1st, 1779. D. Stanton testifies that he was taken June 5th and put in the Jersey prison ship. An allowance from Congress was sent on board. About three or four weeks past we were removed on board the Good Hope, where we found many sick. There is now a hospital ship provided, to which they are removed, and good attention paid.”
A Boston paper dated September 2nd, 1779, has the following: “Returned to this port Alexander Dickey, Commissary of Prisoners, from New York, with a cartel, having on board 180 American prisoners. Their countenances indicate that they have undergone every conceivable inhumanity.”
“New London, Sep. 29th 1779. A Flag arrived here from New York with 117 prisoners, chiefly from New England.”
From Rivington’s Gazette, March lst, 1780. “Last Saturday afternoon the Good Hope prison ship, lying in the Wallebocht Bay was entirely consumed after having been wilfully set on fire by a Connecticut man named Woodbury, who confessed to the fact. He with others of the incendiaries are removed to the Provost. The prisoners let each other down from the port holes and decks into the water.”
So that was the end of the Good Hope. She seems to have been burned by some of the prisoners in utter desperation, probably with some hope that, in the confusion, they might be enabled to escape, though we do not learn that any of them were so fortunate, and the only consequence of the deed appears to have been that the remaining ships were crowded to suffocation.
A writer in the Connecticut Gazette, whose name is not given, says: “May 25th, 1780. I am now a prisoner on board the Falmouth, a place the most dreadful; we are confined so that we have not room even to lie down all at once to sleep. It is the most horrible, cursed, hole that can be thought of. I was sick and longed for some small beer, while I lay unpitied at death’s door, with a putrid fever, and though I had money I was not permitted to send for it. I offered repeatedly a hard dollar for a pint. The wretch who went forward and backward would not oblige me. I am just able to creep about. Four prisoners have escaped from this ship. One having, as by accident, thrown his hat overboard, begged leave to go after it in a small boat, which lay alongside. Having reached the hat they secured the sentinel and made for the Jersey shore, though several armed boats pursued, and shot was fired from the shipping.”
The New Jersey Gazette of June 4th, 1780, says: “Thirty-five Americans, including five officers, made their escape from the prison ship at New York and got safely off.”
“For Sale. The remains of the hospital ship Kitty, as they now lie at the Wallebocht, with launch, anchors, and cables.” Gaine’s Mercury, July 1st, 1780.
New Jersey Gazette, August 23, 1780. “Captain Grumet, who made his escape from the Scorpion prison ship, at New York, on the evening of the 15th, says more lenity is shown the prisoners. There are 200 in the Strombolo, and 120 in the Scorpion.”
It was in 1780 that the poet Freneau was a prisoner on the Scorpion, which, at that time, was anchored in the East River. In Rivington’s Gazette, at the end of that year, the “hulks of his Majesty’s sloops Scorpion and Hunter” are advertised for sale. Also “the Strombolo fire-ship, now lying in North River.” It appears, however, that there were no purchasers, and they remained unsold. They were still in use until the end of the year 1781. Gaine’s Mercury declares that “the Strombolo, from August 21st to December 10th, 1781, had never less than 150 prisoners on board, oftener over 200.”
“Captain Cahoon with four others escaped from a prison ship to Long Island in a boat, March 8, notwithstanding they were fired on from the prison and hospital ships, and pursued by guard boats from three in the afternoon to seven in the evening. He left 200 prisoners in New York.” Connecticut Journal, March 22, 1781.
The Connecticut Gazette, in May, 1781, stated that 1100 French and American prisoners had died during the winter in the prison ships. “New London, November 17th, 1781. A Flag of truce returned here from New York with 132 prisoners, with the rest of those carried off by Arnold. They are chiefly from the prison ships, and some from the Sugar House, and are mostly sick.”
“New London, Jan. 4th, 1782. 130 prisoners landed here from New York December third, in most deplorable condition. A great part are since dead, and the survivors so debilitated that they will drag out a miserable existence. It is enough to melt the most obdurate heart to see these miserable objects landed at our wharves sick and dying, and the few rags they have on covered with vermin and their own excrements.”