XIII. BRITISH PRISONS ON LAND AND WATER. FAMILY QUARRELS are the most bitter of all contentions, and as a rule, the belligerents are the most implacable of enemies for the time. Theological disputes in the Christian family are apt to be more acrimonious and uncompromising than any other in communities; and civil war in a nation is apt to be carried on with more asperity, with more cruelty and less regard for justice, than any conflict between two nations, especially if one party has the position of rebels against the government which the other party supports. There are exceptions to these propositions; but such is generally the rule. were agreed to; and Clinton made a solemn pro- Fearing the influence of the presence in the city of paroled men like Christopher Gadsden, David Ramsay, the historian, and other active Whigs, they preferred against them the false charge of contemplated murder and arson; and these men, with many others, faithfully keeping their paroles, were seized in their beds, carried on board British vessels, and hurried to St. Augustine, in Florida, where the infamous Governor Tryon, whom the North Carolinians (who suffered under his rule for a while) called "The Wolf," was in command. They suffered imprisonment under peculiar hard. ships for many months. There the prisoners were offered paroles to enjoy liberty within the precincts of the town. Gadsden, the fearless and sturdy patriot, refused acquiescence, for he disdained making further terms with the power that did not regard the sanction of a solemn treaty. He was determined not to be deceived a second time. Although King George the Third and his ministers were the real revolutionists in our country a hundred years ago (for they attempted to overturn established governments here and deprive people of their natural and chartered rights), when the colonists in arms resisted these revolutionists, and solemnly leagued for the defence of their common and more than royal prerogatives, they were called by the monarch and his advisers "rebels," and were treated as such. In the moral and canon law, and in the civil code, rebels are regarded as possessing few claims to merciful consideration, excepting those which common humanity demands. The British government and the British people, as well as those of other enlightened nations, recognized the status of a rebel; and, without being more cruel in their nature and practice and in their proclivities than any other Christian people under like circumstances, they oftentimes treated the "rebels" in the American colonies, a century ago, with very great severity. Sometimes they seemed to think an American "rebel" had no rights which a Bri-"Had the British commander," he said, “retish officer was bound to respect, and the latter sometimes violated the most solemn covenants with them without an excuse, as in the case of the prisoners on parole at Charleston, in 1780. Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Arbuthnot had besieged the town until General Lincoln, with a feeble garrison, was compelled, in the face of threatened destruction of property and lives, to surrender the army and city. Clinton exacted the most extraordinary terms, namely, the surrender of the citizens as prisoners on parole, as well as the soldiers. By this means he was able to report that he had several thousand prisoners. The terms garded the terms of capitulation at Charleston, I might now, although a prisoner, enjoy the smiles and consolations of my family under my own roof; but even without a shadow of accusation preferred against me, for any act inconsistent with my plighted faith, I am torn from them, and here, in a distant land, invited to enter into new engage. ments. I will give no parole." "Think better of it," said the brutal Tryon; "a second refusal of it will fix your destiny-a dungeon will be your future habitation." "Prepare it, then," replied the inflexible patriot. "I will give no parole, so help me God." And the petty tyrant did prepare it; and for forty-two weeks that patriot, almost threescore years of age, never saw the light of the blessed sun, but lay immured in the castle at St. Augustine. And Cornwallis, who succeeded Clinton in command in South Carolina, caused many a patriot in that State to be hanged and his family to be made houseless and utterly desolate by fire and plunder, for no other reason than because he preferred the service of his country to that of his oppressors. and three spacious sugar-houses then in the city, some of the Dissenting Churches, King's (now Columbia) College building, and the New York Hospital, on Broadway between Duane and Anthony streets, then on the northern borders of the city, were all used as places of confinement. The disastrous effects of a great fire in the city, in September, 1776, by which about five hundred buildings were laid in ashes; the demands of the British army for supplies; the indolent indifference of These acts were but counterparts of the general General Howe, the British chief, and the cruel feeling of the British in the North toward the conduct of the notorious Cunningham, the ProAmerican republicans during the old War for Inde.vost-Marshal, combined to produce intense sufferpendence, especially towards prisoners taken in the ing among the prisoners. early stages of that war. Associations of intrinsic horror are linked with the memory and the records of the cruelties practiced and the sufferings endured in the prisons and prison-ships of New York, in which thousands of captive patriots were, from time to time, incarcerated between the years 1776 and 1781. The captives made in battles on the land were confined in foul jails in that city, and those who were taken on the sea (and some-last-named structure was an immense edifice of times land soldiers, too) were kept for months in floating dungeons near that city, under circumstances of indefensible cruelty. The most spacious buildings used for prisons were Van Cortlandt's sugar-house, at the northwest corner of Trinity churchyard (corner of Thames and Lumber streets); Livingstone's (the oldest in the city), on Liberty street, near the Middle Dutch Church (lately the City Post-office), and Rhinelander's, corner of William and Duane streets, and running through to Rose street. The brick, and adjoining it was the spacious dwelling of Rhinelander, the proprietor, built of the same materials. These structures form the subject of the illustrations at the head of this paper. Of the three sugar-houses then used for prisoners, Rhinelander's was the last survivor. The latest business carried on in it was printer's-ink making, by Mr. Lightbody. The others sooner gave way to more modern structures. That of Livingstone was demolished in June, 1840, and its site occupied by stores Nos. 34 and 36 Liberty street; and Van Cortlandt's went down in the summer of 1852. The American reader will remember that many prisoners were taken by the British in the battle near Brooklyn at the close of August, 1776, and at the surrender of Fort Washington, toward the upper end of New York or Manhattan Island, at the middle of November following. The prisoners taken on these occasions were mostly confined in jails in New York provided for them. These captives numbered about four thousand. To these should be added full a thousand private citizens of The North Dutch Church in William street, beNew York, arrested by the British on suspicion or tween Fulton and Ann streets (demolished in positive proof that they were active Whigs. At 1874), was made to inclose eight hundred prisonthe close of 1776 at least five thousand republi-ers after taking out the pews and using them for cans were in captivity in and near the city of New York. The only prisons proper in that city then were the "New Jail," that stood in "The Fields"-the present City Hall Park-which, in altered form, is now the "Hall of Records," and the "New Bridewell," which stood between the present City Hall and Broadway. The former was a small stone building, nearly square in form, three stories in height, with dormer windows piercing the roof (making a half-story more), and a cupola. These prisons were quite insufficient for the demand when the captives were brought in, fuel and placing a floor across from gallery to gallery. The handsome mahogany pulpit was carefully removed, and sent to London, where it was placed in a chapel. For about two months several hundred prisoners were huddled together in the Middle Dutch Church, in Nassau street, between Liberty and Cedar streets; on their removal it was converted into a riding-school after taking out the pews. The Brick Church," that occupied the triangle at the junction of Beekman and Nassau streets and Park Row, was also used for a prison a short time; the Presbyterian church edifice in Wall street; that of the Scotch in Cedar street; and the Friends' Meeting house in Liberty street, were converted into hospitals. The Huguenot (French) church edifice in Pine street, and a portion of Van Cortlandt's sugar-house were used as magazines for ordnance; and the old City Hall, corner of Wall and Nassau streets, was used by the main-guard of the city. All of these buildings have passed into history and disappeared, except ing the Middle Dutch Church, until lately occupied as the City Post-office. The "New Jail," whose walls are those of the "Hall of Records," was made a provost prison, where American officers and the most eminent Whigs were confined. Here was the theatre of Cunningham's brutal treatment of prisoners who became victims of his spite. He was a burly, red. headed Irishman, about forty years of age, son of a trumpeter to the Blue Dragoons in the Dublin Barracks. His whole life had been spent in vicious practices. He came to New York in 1774, where the British officers found him breaking horses and teaching young people how to ride them. He seemed to be a fitting tool of oppression, and was made Provost-Marshal of the royal army when it took possession of New York in 1776. At the provost prison he was an autocratic tyrant of the meanest sort. On the right of the main entrance to the prison was his office, and opposite was that of Sergeant O'Keefe, another Irishman, who was his deputy in office and cruelty. The prisoners were formally introduced to Cunningham, when their names, ages and sizes were recorded. They were then confined in the gloomy cells or loathsome upper chambers, where the highest officials in captivity were so closely crowded together that when, at night, they lay down to sleep upon the hard plank floor, they could change their positions only by all turning over at one time at the utterance of the words, right-left. Cunningham would sit in his quarters drinking punch until his brain was on fire, when he would be ready for his devilish work. He called the prisoners his "dogs," and would kick and drive them into their cells, which he called his "kennels." He fed them on the coarsest food, which he received in exchange, at a profit, for better food furnished the prisoners by their friends. He would devour or destroy in their presence little delicacies-tokens of affection-which the prisoners received, to gratify his cruel propensities; and he would often kick over vessels of soup which benevolent persons had sent to the friendless prisoners. For several months, gentlemen of education and fortune, who had lived in the enjoyment of the luxuries and refined pleasures of elegant social life, were doomed to a miserable existence there, which was embittered by the coarsest insults of an ignorant, drunken master (who tortured them with threats of hanging), or to a death. caused by such treatment, the want of good food and fresh air, and innumerable other sufferings, the fruits of the neglect or, possibly, the commands of the British Commissary of Prisoners. The northwest chamber on the second floor of the prison was devoted to captive officers and civilians of highest official rank, and was called, in derision, "Congress Hall.” men. Still greater cruelties were practiced upon the less conspicuous prisoners, and many were hanged in the gl om of night without trial or known cause for the foul murder. During the whole time of the occupation of the city by the British a gallows stood upon the brow of a hill not far from the provost prison, on the northern side of what is now Chambers street. The execution of American prisoners generally took place after midnight. The victims were accompanied to the gallows by Cunningham and O'Keefe, with a guard of eight This guard was previously sent to order the people living in the neighborhood to close their window shutters, and to put out their lights, forbidding them, at the same time, to presume to look out of their windows and doors on pain of death, after which the victims were gagged and conducted to the gibbet, hanged without mercy, and buried by a stout negro assistant of the executioner. Cunningham was restrained from hanging several prisoners every night by women in the neighborhood who, pained by their cries for mercy, made complaint to the commander-inchief. After that Cunningham murdered his pri soners with poison put in the flour given to the captives, and for a long time after their deaths he would cheat his King by drawing rations for them and selling them. When flesh and blood for the gallows were lacking, he would gratify his cruel nature by suspending the effigies of patriots on the gibbet. For a long time a portrait of John Hancock was seen dangling from the horrid beam. The monster was finally hanged in the summer of 1791 for forgery, in England, and in his dying confes sion he said: "I shudder to think of the murders I have been accessory to, both with and without orders from the government, especially while in New York, during which time there were more than two thousand prisoners starved in the different churches by stopping their rations, which I sold. There were also two hundred and seventy-five American prisoners and obnoxious persons executed, out of all which number there were only about one dozen public executions, which chiefly consisted of British and Hessian deserters." With a perfect knowledge of the cruelty of Cunningham and the neglect (or something worse) of the British officials in charge of the American prisoners, Hugh Gaine, a time-serving publisher, and professedly a zealous patriot six months before, insulted truth and honesty by saying in his newspaper: "There are now five thousand prisoners in town, many of them half-naked. Congress, deserting the poor wretches, has sent them neither provisions nor clothing, nor paid attention to their distress, or that of their families. Their situation must have been doubly deplorable, but for the humanity of the King's officers. Every possible attention has been given, considering their great number and necessary confinement, to alleviate their distress arising from guilt, sickness and poverty." | The sugar-house in Liberty street was the theatre of greatest suffering next to the provost prison. It was a dark stone building, five stories in height, with small deep windows like port-holes. Each story was divided into two compartments. A large barred door opened on Liberty street, and from another, on the southeast side, a stairway led to the cellars, which were used as dungeons. Around the whole building was a passage four feet wide, and there, day and night, British and Hessian sentinels patrolled. Into this jail the healthy and the sick, the black and the white, were indiscriminately thrust; and there, during the summer of 1777, a great many died from want of fresh air, exercise and cleanliness. William Dunlap, the artist, who was a lad at the time, and an eye-witness, wrote as follows: "In the suffocating heat of summer I saw every aperture of those strong walls filled with human heads, face above face, seeking a portion of the external air." In July a jail fever broke out, and great numbers died. While it prevailed, the prisoners were brought out in companies of twenty to breathe the fresh air for half an hour, while those within, divided into par ties of six, alternately enjoyed the privilege of standing at the windows ten minutes at a time. They had no seats, and their beds of straw, renewed at long intervals, were filled with vermin. They were daily tempted with offers of liberty if they would enter the military service of the King, their oppressor, but to their honor it is known that very few yielded their principles even while enduring the most exquisite sufferings. They preferred to leave their bodies among the dead carried out each day. Hundreds left there brief records upon the walls and beams of the prison, in the form of the initials of their names. Many of these records remained until the building was demolished, more than sixty years afterwards, when many canes were made from its timbers. David Barker, a merchant of New York, offered, through a city newspaper, in 1851, one of these canes to a proven survivor of the sugar-house prisoners. Several applied for it. It was awarded to Levi Hanford, of Walton, Delaware County, who lived until November, 1854. He was confined in the sugar-house seventeen months. The story of the sufferings of the prisoners in the other sugar-houses in New York is but a repetition of the tale of woe which the inmates of Livingstone's, in Liberty street, related. Equally great were the hardships endured in Van Cortlandt's and Rhinelander's sugar-houses; and still greater were the cruelties of British subordinates and the sufferings of the captives of the prison-ships moored at New York. These were prepared for the confinement of captive seamen, yet some soldiers were imprisoned in them. The first vessels used for this purpose were transports in which cattle and stores had been brought across the Atlantic Ocean in 1776. These at first lay in Gravesend Bay, at the western end of Long Island, to which the prisoners taken. in the battle on Long Island (near Brooklyn) were confined. When the British took possession of New York City these captives were transferred to the prisons there, and the transports were anchored. in the Hudson and East Rivers. Afterwards the hulks of decaying ships were moored in Wallabout Bay, where the Brooklyn Navy Yard now is, a sheltered estuary on the Long island shore. There in succession were the hulks of the Whitby, Good Hope, Scorpion, Prince of Wales, Falmouth, Hunter, Stromboli, and half a dozen of less note, and contained hundreds of American prisoners taken on the high seas. There the suffering of ments. soldiers drafted from British and Hessian regiThese were the jailors of the American captives, and were the instruments of great cruelty. Foul air, filth, unwholesome food and despondency soon produced malignant diseases. Small-pox, dysentery and prison fever were the most prevalent maladies. Good nurses and skillful medical attendants were wanting, and the captives died by scores. The cheering voice of human sympathy seldom reached the ears of the victims, and despair was the handmaid of contagion in doing its horrid work. No systematic efforts were made for their the captives was intense, for cruelty exercised by subordinates held high festival. I have before me a picture by Robert Fulton, entitled "Cruelty Presiding over the Prison-Ships." The vice is represented by a muscular feminine figure with wings, with savage face and knit brow, leaning her chin upon a tightly-clenched fist, and with the other hand holding an open book resting upon her knee. She is nearly covered with a blood-red garment, and is hovering upon a cloud that obscures the sunlight behind, over the prison-ship, from the grated decks of which skinny hands and arms, in the attitude of imploring mercy, are ob-relief; and as these diseases were contagious, no truding, and upturned faces expressive of despair are dimly seen below. By the side of a brass cannon lies a dead figure, while the face of Cruelty remains inflexible in the horrid presence. This is one of the pictures designed by the great inventor to illustrate Joel Barlow's "Columbiad," and was suggested by the following lines in that poem: “Cold-blooded Cruelty! first fiend of hell! Ah, think no more with savage hordes to dwell; Quit the Caribbean tribes who eat their slain; Fly that grim gang, the Inquisitors of Spain; Boast not thy deeds in Moloch's shrines of old, Leave Barbary's pirates to their blood-bought gold; Let Holland steal her victims, force them o'er To toils and death on Java's morbid shore; Some cloak, some color, all these crimes may plead'Tis avarice, passion, blind religion's deed; But Britons here, in this fraternal broil, Grave, cool, deliberate, in thy service toil. Come then, curs'd goddess, where thy vot'ries reign, Inhale their incense from the land and main; Come to New York, their conq'ring arms to greet; Brood o'er their camp, and breathe along their fleet See the black Prison Ship's expanding womb Impacted thousands, quick and dead, entomb." In the year 1780, the Jersey, originally a 64-gun ship which, because of unfitness for sea service had been dismantled in 1776, was placed in Wallabout Bay, and used there as a prison-ship until the close of the war. The name of that vessel became infamous as a synonym of cruelty and savageism. Her companions were the Stromboli, Hunter and Scorpion, then used as hospitals, and were anchored in the Hudson near Paulus's Hook, now Jersey City. In the Jersey large numbers of captives were confined at the same time-often more than a thousand-and their sufferings were terrible. Her crew consisted of a captain, two mates, cook, steward, and a dozen sailors. She had also a guard of veteran invalid marines, and about thirty one visited the hulks to bestow a cheering word or smile upon the sufferers. The prison was called Hell, and upon it might have been appropriately written, "Whoever enters here must leave hope behind." When the captured crews of American privateers were no longer considered prisoners of war by the British, the number of victims in the Jersey fearfully increased, and the Congress had no adequate supply of captives to offer in exchange. Policy, always heartless, forbade the exchange of healthy British prisoners for emaciated Americans, and month after month hapless captives suffered and died. On the Jersey, the name and character of each prisoner were put on record, when he first came on board. He was then placed in the hold, sometimes with a thousand other captives, a large portion of them covered with filthy rags which were often swarming with vermin. In messes of six, they received their daily food every morning, which generally consisted of mouldy biscuits filled with worms, damaged peas, condemned beef and pork, sour flour and meal, rancid butter, sometimes a little filthy suet, but never any vegetables-a diet calculated to produce disease rather than to sustain life. Their meat was boiled in a large copper kettle. Those who had a little money and managed to escape robbery by the British underlings, sometimes purchased bread, sugar and other bits of good food from Dame Grenet, a corpulent old woman who lived near the Wallabout and came along side of the Jersey every morning, in a boat rowed by two boys. At length the small-pox killed the Dame, and her death was a great privation to the captives. Every morning the prisoners were required to bring up their bedding to be aired, and, after washing the decks, they were allowed to remain |