"When the Cartel arrived the surviving number of our crew on board the
Old Jersey was but thirty-five. This fact being well known to
Mr. Tillinghast, and finding that the Cartel had brought forty
prisoners, he allowed five of our comrades in the Gun-room to answer
to the names of the same number of our crew who had died; and having
disguised them in the garb of common seamen, they passed unsuspected.
"It was nearly sunset when we had all arrived on board the Cartel. No
sooner had the exchange been completed than the Commissary left us,
with our prayers that we might never behold him more. I then cast my
eyes towards the hulk, as the horizontal rays of the sunset glanced on
her polluted sides, where, from the bend upwards, filth of every
description had been permitted to accumulate for years; and the
feeling of disgust which the sight occasioned was indescribable. The
multitude on her Spar-deck and Fore-castle were in motion, and in the
act of descending for the night; presenting the same appearance that
met my sight when, nearly five months before, I had, at the same hour,
approached her as a prisoner."
It appears that many other seamen on board the Jersey and the Hospital
ships were exchanged as a good result of the Memorial addressed to
General Washington. An issue of the _Royal Gazette_ of New York,
published on the 17th of July, 1782, contains the following statement:
"The following is a Statement of the Navy Prisoners who have, within
the last few days, been exchanged and brought to this city, viz:
"From Boston, 102 British Seamen.
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