Only
150 left."
The next quotation that we will give contains one of the first
mentions of the Jersey as a prison ship, that we have been able to
find.
"New London, Sept. 1st, 1779. D. Stanton testifies that he was taken
June 5th and put in the Jersey prison ship. An allowance from Congress
was sent on board. About three or four weeks past we were removed on
board the Good Hope, where we found many sick. There is now a hospital
ship provided, to which they are removed, and good attention paid."
A Boston paper dated September 2nd, 1779, has the following: "Returned
to this port Alexander Dickey, Commissary of Prisoners, from New York,
with a cartel, having on board 180 American prisoners. Their
countenances indicate that they have undergone every conceivable
inhumanity."
"New London, Sep. 29th 1779. A Flag arrived here from New York with
117 prisoners, chiefly from New England."
From Rivington's _Gazette,_ March lst, 1780. "Last Saturday
afternoon the Good Hope prison ship, lying in the Wallebocht Bay was
entirely consumed after having been wilfully set on fire by a
Connecticut man named Woodbury, who confessed to the fact. He with
others of the incendiaries are removed to the Provost. The prisoners
let each other down from the port holes and decks into the water."
So that was the end of the Good Hope. She seems to have been burned by
some of the prisoners in utter desperation, probably with some hope
that, in the confusion, they might be enabled to escape, though we do
not learn that any of them were so fortunate, and the only consequence
of the deed appears to have been that the remaining ships were crowded
to suffocation.
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