To show that these observations are just and well grounded, I think it
necessary to inform you of some facts which have happened within my
immediate notice, and to put you in mind of others which you cannot
deny. I was myself present at the time when Captain Aborn and
Dr. Bowen * * * waited on his Excellency General Washington, and know
perfectly well the answer his Excellency gave to that application: he
informed them in the first place that he was not directly or
indirectly invested with any power of inference respecting the
exchange of naval prisoners; that this business was formerly under the
direction of the Board of Admiralty, that upon the annihilation of
that Board Congress had committed it to the Financier (who has in
charge all our naval prisoners) and he to the Secretary at war. That
(the General) was notwithstanding disposed to do everything in his
power for their assistance and relief: that as exchanging seamen for
soldiers was contrary to the original agreement for the exchange of
prisoners,--which specified that officers should be exchanged for
officers, soldiers for soldiers, citizens for citizens, and seamen for
seamen; as it was contrary to the custom and practice of other
nations, and as it would be, in his opinion, contrary to the soundest
policy, by giving the enemy a great and permanent strength for which
we could receive no compensation, or at best but a partial and
temporary one, he did not think it would be admissible: but as it
appeared to him, from a variety of well authenticated information, the
present misery and mortality which prevailed among the naval prisoners
were almost entirely, if not altogether produced by the _mode of
their confinement_, being closely crowded together in infected
prison-ships, where the very air is pregnant with disease, and the
ships themselves (never having been cleaned in the course of many
years), a mere mass of putrefaction, he would therefor, from motives
of humanity, write to Rear-Admiral Digby, in whose power it was to
remedy this great evil, by confining them on shore, or having a
sufficient number of prison-ships provided for that purpose, for, he
observed, it was as preposterously cruel to confine 800 men, at this
sultry season, on board the Jersey prison-ship, as it would be to shut
up the whole army of Lord Cornwallis to perish in the New Goal of
Philadelphia, but if more commodious and healthy accommodations were
not afforded we had the means of retaliation in our hands, which he
should not hesitate, in that case, to make use of, by confining the
land prisoners with as much severity as our seamen were held.
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