HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 353

contents a compound of the most disgusting and poisonous nature,1 to which is directly attributable the death of hundreds of the prisoners on the Jersey.

Near the Jersey, as before mentioned, lay three hospital-ships—the Scorpion, Stromboli, and Hunter—of whose interiors Dring (who, more fortunate than others, managed to maintain his health) says he could only form some idea “from viewing their outward appearance, which was disgusting in the highest degree.” Their condition was probably preferable, in many respects, to that of the Jersey, as they were less crowded, and were provided with awnings, and with windsails at each hatchway, for the purpose of conducting the fresh air between decks, where the sick were placed; and, what was still better, the hatchways were left open during the night,2 the keepers having no apprehension of any danger from the feeble wretches under their control. Every day (when the weather was good) a visiting surgeon from the Hunter—which was the station of the medical staff, etc.—came over to the Jersey and examined the sick who were able to present themselves at the gangway, on the upper deck. If a sick man was pronounced by the surgeon to be a proper subject for removal to the hospital-ship, he was hurried into the boat in waiting alongside—not being allowed to go below for the purpose of getting his clothes or effects (if he had any), which became the spoils of the nurses. The condition of the hospital-ships, however, was scarcely less crowded, filthy, and uncomfortable than that of the Jersey itself. Insufficient clothing, scarcity of blankets, the want of dry fuel to keep up even the small fires that were allowed, caused great suffering among the patients,3 whose only provision

1 Mr. Palmer (Dawson’s Dring, p. 72) also mentions this water taken from the hold of the vessel, which was “ropy as molasses.”

2 Sherburne’s experience (p. 111) on board the Frederick hospital-ship, Freneau’s on the Hunter, and that of Coffin on the John, contradicts this.

3 Sherburne, who was a patient on the Frederick in January, 1783, says (p. 114): “My bunk was directly against the ballast-port: and the port not being caulked, when there came a snow-storm, the snow would blow through the seams on my bed;Ó which, however he esteemed an advantage, when he could not otherwise procure water to quench his thirst. The sufferings which he endured from that cause alone, left their effects upon him until his death. He also mentions that a man near him in the ship was taken sick, and, while in that condition, had his feet and legs so badly frozen, that, at length, while they were being dressed, the toes and bottoms of his feet sloughed off