338 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

by the British ship Belisarius, he proceeded to the place of their imprisonment, under the charge of the notorious David Sproat, Commissary of Prisoners. “We at length doubled a point,” he says, “and came in view of the Wallabout, where lay before us the black hulk of the Old Jersey, with her satellites, the three hospitalships, to which Sproat pointed in an exulting manner, and said, ‘There, rebels, there is the cage for you !’ * * * As he spoke, my eye was instantly turned from the dreaded hulk; but a single glance had shown us a multitude of human beings moving upon her upper deck. It was then nearly sunset, and before we were alongside, every man, except the sentinels on the gangway, had disappeared. Previous to their being sent below, some of the prisoners, seeing us approaching, waved their hats, as if they would say, approach us not; and we soon found fearful reason for the warning.” While waiting along-side for orders, some of the prisoners, whose features they could not see, on account of the increasing darkness, addressed them through the air-holes which we have described. After some questions as to whence they came, and concerning their capture, one of the prisoners remarked “that it was a lamentable thing to see so many young men, in full strength, with the flush of health upon their countenances, about to enter that infernal place of abode. ‘Death,’ he said, I had no relish for such skeleton carcases as we are; but he will now have a feast upon you fresh comers.” The new-comers were registered and sent below; but the intolerable heat and foul air rendered sleep impossible; and, when they sought the air-holes, in order to gain one breath of exterior air, they found them occupied by others, who seemed to be justified, by the law of self-preservation, in keeping possession, and who could not be induced, by any amount of persuasion, to relinquish their places even for a moment. Disappointed in this, and shocked by the curses and imprecations of those who were lying upon the crowded deck, and whom they had disturbed in passing over them, they were obliged to sit down in this stifling and nauseous atmosphere, which almost deprived them of sense and even of life, and wait for the coming morning. But dawn brought to their eyes only the vision of “a crowd of strange and unknown forms, with the lines of death and famine upon their faces”—a “pale and meagre throng,” who, at eight o’clock, were