That on his reporting to General Howe the number of the
Prisoners dead, he raised his pay. He further confessed that he
poisoned the wells used by the American Flying Camp, which caused such
an uncommon Mortality among them in the year 1776."
Jabez Fitch seems to have been mistaken in thinking that General
Robertson instead of Lord Howe was commanding in New York at this
time.
We will now give the account written by a Tory gentleman, who lived in
New York during a part of the Revolution, of Loring, the Commissary of
Prisons, appointed by General Howe in 1776. Judge Thomas Jones was a
noted loyalist of the day. Finding it inconvenient to remain in this
country after the war, he removed to England, where he died in 1792,
having first completed his "History of New York during the
Revolution." He gives a much larger number of prisoners in that city
in the year 1776 than do any of the other authorities. We will,
however, give his statements just as they were written.
"Upon the close of the campaign in 1776 there were not less than
10,000 prisoners (Sailors included) within the British lines in New
York. A Commissary of Prisoners was therefore appointed, and one
Joshua Loring, a Bostonian, was commissioned to the office with a
guinea a day, and rations of all kinds for himself and family. In this
appointment there was reciprocity.
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