When at last they reached the Jersey they
found 800 prisoners on board. Many of these poor wretches would become
sick in the night and die before day. Hawkins was obliged to lie down
to rest only twenty feet from the gangway, and in the path of the
prisoners who would run over him to get on the upper deck. He
describes the condition of these men as appalling.
"Near us," he writes, "was a guard ship and hospital ship, and along
the shore a line of sentinels at regular intervals."
Yet he determined to escape. Many did so; and many were murdered in
the attempt. A mess of six had just met a dreadful fate. One of them
became terrified and exclaimed as soon as he touched the water, "O
Lord, I shall be drowned!" The guard turned out, and murdered five of
the poor wretches. The sixth managed to hide, and held on by the
flukes of the anchor with nothing but his nose above water. Early in
the morning he climbed up the anchor over the bow of the ship to the
forecastle, and fled below. A boy named Waterman and Hawkins
determined to drop through a port-hole, and endeavor to reach Long
Island by swimming. He thus describes the adventure:
"The thunder-storm was opportune to our design, for having previously
obtained from the cook's room an old axe and crow-bar from the upper
deck for the purpose, we concealed them till an opportunity should
offer for their use.
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