This was the case several
mornings, when sometimes six, and sometimes eight or ten were found
dead by wounds thus received."
A Connecticut paper, some time in May, 1781, stated that. "Eleven
hundred French and American prisoners died in New York last winter."
A paper published in Philadelphia, on the 20th of February, 1782,
says: "Many of our unfortunate prisoners on board the prison ships in
the East River have perished during the late extreme weather, for want
of fuel and other necessaries."
"New London. May 3rd. 1782. One thousand of our seamen remain in
prison ships in New York, a great part in close confinement for six
months past, and in a most deplorable condition. Five hundred have
died during the past five or six months, three hundred are sick; many
seeing no prospect of release are entering the British service to
elude the contagion with which the prison ships are fraught."
Joel Barlow in his Columbiad says that Mr. Elias Boudinot told him
that in the Jersey 1,100 prisoners died in eighteen months, almost the
whole of them from the barbarous treatment of being stifled in a
crowded hold with infected air; and poisoned with unwholesome food,
and Mr Barlow adds that the cruelties exercised by the British armies
on American prisoners during the first years of the war were
unexampled among civilized nations.
CONCLUSION
Such of the prisoners as escaped after months of suffering with health
sufficient for future usefulness in the field often re-enlisted,
burning for revenge.
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