1944. CRUELTY, British in America.—
If M. de Meunier proposes to mention the
facts of cruelty of which he * * *
spoke yesterday, these facts are: 1. The death
of upwards of eleven thousand American prisoners
in one prison ship (the Jersey), and in
the space of three years. 2. General Howe's
permitting our prisoners, taken at the battle of
Germantown, and placed under a guard in the
yard of the State-house of Philadelphia, to be
so long without any food furnished them that
many perished with hunger. Where the bodies
lay, it was seen that they had eaten all
the grass around them within their reach,
after they had lost the power of rising, or
moving from their place. 3. The second fact
was the act of a commanding officer; the first,
of several commanding officers, and for so
long a time as must suppose the approbation
of government, itself. But the following was
the act of the government itself. During the
periods that our affairs seemed unfavorable,
and theirs successful, that is to say, after the
evacuation of New York, and again, after the
taking of Charleston, in South Carolina, they
regularly sent our prisoners, taken on the seas
and carried to England, to the East Indies.
This is so certain, that in the month of November
or December, 1785, Mr. Adams having officially
demanded a delivery of the American
prisoners sent to the East Indies. Lord Carmarthen
answered, officially, “that orders were
immediately issued for their discharge.” M. de
Meunier i at liberty to quote this fact. 4. A
fact to be ascribed not only to the government,
but to the parliament, who passed an act for
that purpose in the beginning of the war, was
the obliging our prisoners taken at sea to join
them, and fight against their countrymen. This
they effected by starving and whipping them.
* * * The fact is referred to in that paragraph
of the Declaration of Independence,
which says, “He has constrained our fellow-citizens,
taken captive on the high seas, to bear
arms against their country, to become the executioners
of their friends and brethren, or to
fall themselves by their hands.” This was the
most afflicting to our prisoners of all the cruelties
exercised on them. The others affected
the body only, but this the mind; they were
haunted by the horror of having, perhaps, themselves
shot the ball by which a father or a
brother fell. Some of them had constancy
enough to hold out against half allowance of
food and repeated whippings. These were generally
sent to England, and from thence to
the East Indies. One of them escaped from
the East Indies, and got back to Paris, where
he gave an account of his sufferings to Mr.
Adams.—
To M. de Meunier. Washington ed. ix, 277.
Ford ed., iv, 183.
(P.
1786)
