Being locked up alone in a filthy apartment,
and denied any assistance whatever, he was obliged to dress the wound
with his own linen, and then to endure, in solitude and misery, every
indignity which the malice of the Provost Master urged him to inflict
upon a _damned rebel_, who, he declared, ought to be hung.
"After several months of confinement and starvation he was exchanged."
Two Whig gentlemen of Long Island were imprisoned in the Provost
Prison some time in the year 1777. Two English Quakers named Jacob
Watson and Robert Murray at last procured their release. Their names
were George Townsend and John Kirk. Kirk caught the smallpox while in
prison. He was sent home in a covered wagon. His wife met him at the
door, and tenderly nursed him through the disorder. He recovered in
due time, but she and her infant daughter died of the malady. There
were hundreds of such cases: indeed throughout the war contagion was
carried into every part of the country by soldiers and former
prisoners. In some instances the British were accused of selling
inoculated clothing to the prisoners. Let us hope that some, at least,
of these reports are unfounded.
The North Dutch Church was the last of the churches used as prisons to
be torn down. As late as 1850 it was still standing, and marks of
bayonet thrusts were plainly to be discerned upon its pillars.
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