One day called peaday I
took the drawer of our doctor's chest (Dr. Hodges of Philadelphia) and
went to the galley, which was the cooking place, with my drawer for a
soup dish. I held it under a large brass cock, the cook turned it. I
received the allowance of my mess, and behold! Brown water, and
fifteen floating peas--no peas on the bottom of my drawer, and this
for six men's allowance for 24 hours. The peas were all in the bottom
of the kettle. Those left would be taken to New York and, I suppose,
sold.
"One day in the week, called pudding day, we would receive three
pounds of damaged flour, in it would be green lumps such as their men
would not eat, and one pound of very bad raisins, one third raisin
sticks. We would pick out the sticks, mash the lumps of flour, put
all with some water into our drawer, mix our pudding and put it into a
bag and boil it with a tally tied to it with the number of our
mess. This was a day's allowance. We, for some time, drew a half pint
of rum for each man. One day Captain Lard (Laird) who commanded the
ship Jersey, came on board. As soon as he was on the main deck of the
ship he cried out for the boatswain. The boatswain arrived and in a
very quick motion, took off his hat. There being on deck two half
hogshead tubs where our allowance of rum was mixed into grog, Captain
L., said, 'Have the prisoners had their allowance of rum today?' 'No,
sir' answered the boatswain.
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