This short history of the Jersey has been condensed from the account
written in 1865 by Mr. Henry B. Dawson and published at Morrisania,
New York, in that year.
In an oration delivered by Mr. Jonathan Russel, in Providence, R. I.,
on the 4th of July 1800, he thus speaks of this ill-fated vessel and
of her victims: "But it was not in the ardent conflicts of the field
only, that our countrymen fell; it was not the ordinary chances of war
alone which they had to encounter. Happy indeed, thrice happy were
Warren, Montgomery, and Mercer; happy those other gallant spirits who
fell with glory in the heat of the battle, distinguished by their
country and covered with her applause. Every soul sensible to honor,
envies rather than compassionates their fate. It was in the dungeons
of our inhuman invaders; it was in the loathsome and pestiferous
prisons, that the wretchedness of our countrymen still makes the heart
bleed. It was there that hunger, and thirst, and disease, and all the
contumely that cold-hearted cruelty could bestow, sharpened every pang
of death. Misery there wrung every fibre that could feel, before she
gave the Blow of Grace which sent the sufferer to eternity. It is said
that poison was employed. No, there was no such mercy there. There,
nothing was employed which could blunt the susceptibility to anguish,
or which, by hastening death, could rob its agonies of a single
pang.
Pages:
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275