The flour and oatmeal was often sour, and
when the suet was mixed with the flour it might be nosed half the
length of the ship. The first view of the beef would excite an idea of
veneration for its antiquity, * * * its color was a dark mahagony, and
its solidity would have set the keenest edge of a broad axe at
defiance to cut across the grain, though like oakum it could be pulled
to pieces, one way, in strings, like rope yarn. * * * It was so
completely saturated with salt that after having been boiled in water
taken from the sea, it was found to be considerably freshened by the
process. * * * Such was our food, but the quality was not all of which
we had to complain. * * * The cooking was done in a great copper
vessel. * * * The Jersey, from her size, and lying near the shore, was
embedded in the mud, and I don't recollect seeing her afloat the whole
time I was a prisoner. All the filth that accumulated among upwards of
a thousand men was daily thrown overboard, and would remain there
until carried away by the tide. The impurity of the water may be
easily conceived, and in that water our meat was boiled. It will be
recollected, too, that the water was salt, which caused the inside of
the copper to be corroded to such a degree that it was lined with a
coat of verdigris. Meat thus cooked must, in some degree, be poisoned,
and the effects of it were manifest in the cadaverous countenances of
the emaciated beings who had remained on board for any length of time.
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