360 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

reached home only in time to die,1Ñthe above estimate does not seem exaggerated if applied to the mortality, not of the Jersey alone, but of ail the prison-ships.

The Prison-ships, as we have already seen, were condemned vessels of war, totally unsuitable for places of confinement; and, while the abstract right of the enemy to use them as such is unquestionable,2 yet there was not the least necessity of so doing, when, within a stone's throw, were broad acres of unoccupied land, much better suited for the purpose. Neither was there any real or pretended necessity for resort to the extreme measures which were adopted towards the American naval prisoners. It is true that, according to the law of nations, their claims for consideration, as subjects in rebellion, were not as great as those of captives taken in solemn war; yet it is equally true that the main object of the warÑthe suppression of rebellionÑdid not justify the severity of treatment which these prisoners received, and which transcended that higher Òlaw of humanity,Ó which every nation is bound to observe and respect. It is evident that the JERSEY, which had once accommodated a crew of over four hundred, with full armament, supplies, etc., might, without

1 At New London, in February, ’79, arrived a cartel of one hundred and thirty of these poor victims of the prison-ships. In such condition were these men placed on board the cartel, that, in the short run between New York and New London, sixteen died on board; and sixty, when they landed, were scarcely able to move, while the remainder were much emaciated. In November, 1781, one hundred and thirty-two prisoners arrived from the prison-ships, “mostly sick.” In December of the same year, one hundred and thirty prisoners landed from New York, “in most deplorable condition ; great part 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 rage they have on covered with vermin and their own excrements.” At New London, in December, ’78, nearly one hundred and seventy-two American prisoners arrived from New York, the “greater part sickly and in most deplorable condition, owing chiefly to the ill-usage in their prison-ships, where numbers had their feet and legs from.”

Lieutenant Catlin, who was placed with two hundred and twenty-five men on board the Glasgow, to be sent to Connecticut as an exchange, says they were aboard eleven days, without fire, and with even low food than before; and that twenty-eight died during the passage, from cold and ill-usage. Multitudes of ouch cases could be quoted.

2 In evidence that the Americans did not question this right, we may cite the fact that, in 1782, a vessel, fitly named—the Retaliation, was fitted up as a prison-ship, moored in the Thames river, near Now London, Conn., and used as place of confinement for captured British seamen.