340 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

man had to pass through, and go down between decks, and there remain until the examination was completed. * * On the two decks below, where we were confined at night, our chests, boxes, and bags were arranged in two lines along the deck, about ten feet distant from the two sides of the ship; thus leaving as wide a space unencumbered in the middle part of each deck, fore and aft, as our crowded situation would admit. Between these tiers of chests, etc., and the sides of the ship, was the place where the different messes assembled; and some of the messes were also separated from their neighbors by a temporary partition of chests, etc. Some individuals of the different messes usually slept on the chests, in order to preserve their contents from being plundered during the night.Ó

At night, the spaces in the middle of the deck were much encumbered with hammocks, but these were always removed in the morning. The extreme after-part of the ship, between decks, which was called Òthe gun-room,Ó was appropriated by the captive officers to their own use; while the lowest deck was assigned to the French and Spanish prisoners, who were treated with even more cruelty, if possible, than the Americans.1

The first care of a prisoner, after arriving upon the Jersey, says Dring, Òwas to form, or be admitted into, some regular mess.2 On the day of a prisoner's arrival, it was impossible for him to procure any food; and, even on the second day, he could not procure any in time to have it cooked. No matter how long he had fasted, nor how acute might be his sufferings from hunger and privations, his petty tyrants would on no occasion deviate from their rule of delivering the prisoner's morsel at a particular hour, and at no other: and the poor, half-famished wretch must absolutely wait until the coming day, before his pittance of food could be boiled with that of his fellow-captives. The vacancies in the different messes daily provided by death, rendered it comparatively easy for the new-comers

1 This seems to have been the reverse of the rule observed in England, where “the American prisoners were treated with less humanity than the French and Spanish, and were allowed only half the quantity of bread per day. Their petitions for relief, offered by Mr. Fox, in the House of Commons, and by the Duke of Richmond, in the House of Lords, were treated with contempt; while the French and Spanish had few or no complaints to make.”—British Annual Register, 1781, p. 152.

2 Sherburne’s Mem., 108; Fox’s Adv. In Rev., 100.