CHAPTER XI
THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE REVOLUTION
What we have been able to glean from the periodicals of the day about
the state of the prisons in New York during the years 1776 and 1777 we
will condense into one short chapter.
We will also give an abstract taken from a note book written by
General Jeremiah Johnson, who as a boy, lived near Wallabout Bay
during the Revolution and who thus describes one of the first prison
ships used by the British at New York. He says: "The subject of the
naval prisoners, and of the British prisons-ships, stationed at the
Wallabout during the Revolution, is one which cannot be passed by in
silence. From printed journals, published in New York at the close of
the war, it appeared that 11,500 American prisoners had died on board
the prison ships. Although this number is very great, yet if the
numbers who perished had been less, the Commissary of Naval Prisoners,
David Sproat, Esq., and his Deputy, had it in their power, by an
official Return, to give the true number taken, exchanged, escaped,
and _dead_. Such a Return has never appeared in the United
States.
"David Sproat returned to America after the war, and resided in
Philadelphia, where he died. [Footnote: This is, we believe, a
mistake. Another account says he died at Kirkcudbright, Scotland, in
1792.] The Commissary could not have been ignorant of the statement
published here on this interesting subject.
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