1781.
Sir:
If I had not been very busy when I received your letter dated the 25
of Jan. last, complaining of the treatment of the naval prisoners at
this place, I certainly should have answered it before this time; and,
notwithstanding that I then thought, as I now do, that my own
testimony would have been sufficient to put the truth past a doubt, I
ordered the strictest scrutiny to be made into the condition of all
parties concerned in the victualling and treatment of those
unfortunate people. Their several testimonies you must have seen, and
I give you my honor that the transaction was conducted with such
strict care and impartiality that you may rely on its validity.
Permit me now, Sir, to request that you will take the proper steps to
cause Mr. Bradford, your Commissary, and the Jailor at Philadelphia,
to abate the inhumanity which they exercise indiscriminately upon all
people who are so unfortunate as to be carried into that place.
I will not trouble you, Sir, with a catalogue of grievances, further
than to request that the unfortunate may feel as little of the
severities of war as the circumstances of the time will permit, that
in future they may not be fed in winter with salted clams, and that
they may be afforded a sufficiency of fuel.
I am, Sir,
your most obdt and hble srvt
M. Arbuthnot.
Probably the American prisoners would have been glad to eat salted
clams, rather than diseased pork, and, as has been shown, they were
sometimes frozen to death on board the prison ships, where no fire
except for cooking purposes seems ever to have been allowed.
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