HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 341

to associate themselves with some of the older captives, of whose experience they could, in various ways, avail themselves. These messes, consisting generally of six men each, were all numbered; and every morning, when the steward’s bell rang, at nine o’clock, an individual belonging to each mess stood ready to answer to its number. As soon as it was called, the person representing it hurried forward to the window in the bulkhead of the steward's room, from which was handed the allowance for the day. This was, for each six men, what was equivalent to the full rations of four men.1 No vegetables of any description,2 or butter, was allowed; but, in place of the latter, a scanty portion of so-called sweet-oil, so rancid and often putrid, that the Americans could not eat it, and always gave it to the foreign prisoners in the lower hold,who took it gratefully, and swallowed it with a little salt and their wormy bread.”3 These rations, insufficient and miserable as they

1 That is, each prisoner was furnished in quantity with two-thirds of the allowance of a seaman in the British navy at that time; viz., on Sundays and Thursdays, a pound of biscuit, one pound of pork, and half a pint of peas; on Mondays and Fridays, a pound of biscuit, a pint of oatmeal, and two ounces of butter; on Tuesdays and Saturdays, one pound of biscuit and two pounds of beef; and on Wednesday, one and a half pounds of flour and two pounds of suet.

2 Andros (p. 9) says: “Once or twice, by the order of a stranger on the quarter-deck, a bag of apples were hurled promiscuously into the midst of hundreds of prisoners, crowded together as thick as they could stand, and life and limb were endangered by the scramble. This, instead of compassion, was a cruel sport. When I saw it about to commence, I fled to the most distant part of the ship.”

3 Sherburne (111) says: “It was supposed that this bread and beef had been condemned in the British navy. The bread had been so eaten by weevils, that one might easily crush it in the hand and blow it away. The beef was exceedingly salt, and scarcely a particle of fat could be seen upon it. * * * Once a week, we had a mess of what is called burgoo, or mush (the Yankees would call it hasty pudding made of oatmeal and water. This oatmeal was scarcely ever sweet; it was generally so musty and bitter, that none but people suffering as we did could eat it.” He says, though, that large quantities of provisions were daily brought alongside of the ship, and as long as a prisoner's money lasted, he could get better than the ordinary fare. Andros (p. 17) says of the bread: “I do not recollect seeing any which was not fall of living vermin; but eat it, worms and all, we must, or starve.”

ÒIn the month of March, 1779, flour and breadstuffs were very nearly exhausted in the British storehouses at New York. There was no good flour; and the Hessians, who were in Brooklyn, drew damaged oatmeal instead of bread. This meal, which was baked in cakes, was unfit for use, and the writer has seen them cast to the swine, which would not eat them. The soldiers were mutinous. All the grain possessed by the farmers was estimated and placed under requisition. The timely arrival of a few victualling ships relieved the scarcity, and saved the British from a surrender to the