Grandfather used
to speak of the treatment of our prisoners as most cruel and
murderous, though charging it more to the Tories or Refugees than to
the British.
"The effects of the poison taken into his system were never eradicated
in the life-time of my grandfather, a 'breaking out,' or rash,
appearing every spring, greatly to his annoyance and discomfort."
CHAPTER XVI
THE CASE OF JOHN BLATCHFORD
In our attempt to describe the sufferings of American prisoners taken
during the Revolution, we have, for the most part, confined ourselves
to New York, only because we have been unable to make extensive
research into the records of the British prisons in other places. But
what little we have been able to gather on the subject of the
prisoners sent out of America we will also lay before our readers.
We have already stated the fact that some of our prisoners were sent
to India and some to Africa. They seem to have been sold into slavery,
and purchased by the East India Company, and the African Company as
well.
It is doubtful if any of the poor prisoners sent to the unwholesome
climate of Africa ever returned to tell the story of British cruelties
inflicted upon them there,--where hard work in the burning
sun,--scanty fare,--and jungle fever soon ended their miseries. But
one American prisoner escaped from the Island of Sumatra, where he had
been employed in the pepperfields belonging to the East India
Company.
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