HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 361

her stores, dismantled, and anchored in a protected situation, have easily been made comfortable for even the thousand prisoners which she is said to have averaged. That she was not so, and that she became a “festering plague-spot,” was attributable largely to the conduct of those inferior officers under whose immediate care the prisoners were placed; and who, by their disregard of the policy of their Government, their avaricious and shameful mal-appropriation of the supplies placed at their disposal by that Government for the use of the prisoners, and their frequent and uncalled-for severity, unnecessarily increased the sufferings which they should have mitigated.

There is ample evidence, moreover, in the various narratives extaut concerning the prison-ships, that the prisoners—themselves demoralized by the accumulation of suffering to which they were subjected—were accountable, to a considerable extent, for much of their own suffering.1 The same narratives also, when divested of the vindictiveness and exaggeration to which their writers not unnaturally gave expression, furnish incontestable evidence that prisoners were, in some instances, treated with more consideration than is generally supposed. Friends were permitted to visit them and

1 For example, although the leakage of the Jersey rendered necessary the frequent use of the pumps to keep her from sinking in the soft mud of the Wallabout, yet we have the testimony of Andros (p. 9) that the prisoners were only forced up to the winches, and to keep the pumps in motion, by the intimidation of an armed guard. He also states (p. 16) that “the prisoners were furnished with buckets and brushes to cleanse the ship, and with vinegar to sprinkle her inside; but their indolence and despair were such that they would not use them or but rarely.”

According to Dring, soon after the Jersey began to be used as a place of confinement, the prisoners established a code of by-laws for their own regulation and governmentespecially as regarded personal cleanliness, the prevention of profanity, drunkenness and theft, the observance of the Sabbath, etc. For a long time these laws were scrupulously observed; but, as numbers constantly increased, and sickness, despair, and harsh treatment began to have their full measure of influence upon the prisoners, they exhibited the demoralization of despair; and though the rules against theft, fighting, tyrannical conduct, etc., were still enforced, it was not so much from principle, as from an Instinct of self-preservation. Hawkins (p. 67) mentions a case of punishment inflicted by the prisoners of the Jersey upon one of their number, which was terribly severe.

The prisoners, also, rendered desperate by their sufferings, took no pains to conciliate their keepers; but, according to all accounts, showed an evident disposition to annoy the guard, the cook, and even the old marines who guarded the water-butt, and who always repaid these petty annoyances with interest, thus adding materially to the inconvenlences and horrors of their situation. Fox and others give many instances of this.