"On my arrival on board the Old Jersey, I found there about 1,100
prisoners; many of them had been there from three to six months, but
few lived over that time if they did not get away by some means or
other. They were generally in the most deplorable situation, mere
walking skeletons, without money, and scarcely clothes to cover their
nakedness, and overrun with lice from head to feet.
"The provisions, Sir, that were served out to us, was not more than
four or five ounces of meat, and about as much bread, all condemned
provisions from the ships of war, which, no doubt, were supplied with
new in their stead, and the new, in all probability, charged by the
commissaries to the Jersey. They, however, know best about that; and
however secure they may now feel, they will have to render an account
of that business to a Judge who cannot be deceived. This fact,
however, I can safely aver, that both the times I was confined on
board the prison ships, there never were provisions served out to the
prisoners that would have been eatable by men that were not literally
in a starving situation.
"The water that we were forced to use was carried from the city, and I
postively assert that I never after having followed the sea thirty
years, had on board of any ship, (and I have been three years on some
of my voyages,) water so bad as that we were obliged to use on board
the Old Jersey; when there was, as it were to tantalize us, as pure
water, not more than three cables length from us, at the Mill in the
Wallabout, as was perhaps ever drank.
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