University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

Philip Freneau.

Those who derive their impressions of the hardships,
privations, and sufferings of the people of the
United States, during the war of independence, from
the general history of the times, will form but a vague
idea of their magnitude and extension. History, for
the most part, records but great events, and deals only
with those illustrious characters and actions, which
have an immediate or remote influence on the fate of
nations. The conflicts of great armies, the siege of
fortified places, and the sacking of cities, are carefully
recorded; while the plunder of harvest-fields, the robbery
of the husbandman of the fruits of his labours
and the necessaries of life, the burning of his home,
the slaughter of his wife and children, the perpetual

fears and never-ceasing insults and outrages, which
generally accompany the march of invading armies—
all these, if alluded to at all, are expressed in loose
generalities, which make little if any impression on
the mind. The sufferings of the individual are lost in
the mass of national distress, or only remembered in
traditions which grow more obscure and doubtful at
every succeeding generation, and come at last to be
considered either fabulous or doubtful.

The state of New York was among those which
suffered most severely in the struggle to maintain the
principles of the revolution. Her capital was occupied
by the enemy during almost the entire period of
the war; her western frontier was exposed to invasion
from Canada, to perpetual devastation and massacre
by the tories and Indians of the Six Nations, instigated
and led on by the Johnsons, the bloody Butlers, and the
savage Brant; and there was not a county in the state,
on which the foot of the invader was not imprinted
in the soil. The massacre of Cherry Valley, of Schoharie,
and other places, then almost without a name,
and the long succession of bloody atrocities along the
whole valley of the Mohawk, although only slightly
referred to, or not noticed at all in our general histories,
will long be remembered by the posterity of those
who were their victims.

But there was still another class of obscure and
lowly patriots, whose fate, though still more melancholy
than that of all the others, has excited less sympathy
because it is less known. Hundreds, nay, thousands
of as hardy and devoted spirits as ever the love
of freedom animated and inspired, suffered long, and

died lingering deaths on board the hospital and prison-ships,
still remembered by a few of our aged citizens
as the abode of misery and despair. They perished,
unnoticed and unknown, amid insults, scoffings, and
privations of every kind. They died like dogs, and
like dogs they were buried. Their names have perished
with their bodies, and the monument erected to
commemorate their sufferings and devotion, has only
sufficed to record that a multitude of victims to the
cause of their country here mingle their bones together.
Let it not be supposed these remarks are made
with a view to revive, or strengthen, or perpetuate
national antipathies. They have a higher and a better
object; namely, to pay a homely tribute to lowly
worth and unrecorded patriotism; to show the price
which our fathers paid for liberty, and the obligation
which rests on all their posterity dearly to cherish
what was so dearly purchased.

The Hunter prison-ship, into whose bosom our hero
was consigned, was an old dismasted hulk, which some
that are yet living have not forgotten, and never will
forget. Dismantled, neglected, and decayed, she lay
on the water, a black and dismal object without; within,
the abode of anguish and despair. The story of
the miseries endured by our captured countrymen in
that wretched tabernacle of sorrow, will never be
thoroughly known; but enough is preserved by tradition,
and in the memory of a few gray-headed survivors,
to give some idea of the sufferings of those who
died. It will generally be found that the direction and
superintendence of prisoners of war falls to the lot, if
it is not sought by a class of men having no other feeling

to gratify but a sordid love of gain, or the indulgence
of a petty spirit of tyranny. Sometimes, perhaps,
a more humane and generous spirit may accept
the painful office with a view to alleviate the miseries
of war; but even on such occasions, it would seem
that the perpetual contemplation of human suffering,
instead of softening, gradually hardens the heart. Custom
at length reconciles them to what they see all day
long, and produces insensibility, if not an actual taste
for the banquet of human sorrows. There are men
who are known to be amateurs in the art of inflicting
pangs on their fellow-creatures, and others who enjoy
with incredible zest, the dying struggles of a condemned
malefactor. People of more tender and refined
feelings, are apt to shrink from stations in which
they might best administer to the miseries of others;
and hence, we frequently find that hospitals, jails, and
poor-houses, and most especially those belonging to
military establishments, are placed under the immediate
superintendence of those whose hearts are naturally
insensible to the contemplation of human suffering,
or whom long habit has hardened into viewing it
without pain or sympathy. When it becomes a daily
routine of duty to attend the sick or relieve the poor,
it is very likely to be performed like any other everyday
business. It would be unjust, therefore, to involve
a whole nation in one common censure, on account of
the harsh treatment inflicted on our countrymen in the
prison-ships at New York, were it not that the like
was generally experienced elsewhere, during the progress
of the struggle, until it was in some measure
checked by the threat of retaliation. The facts are
sanctioned by history, as well as living evidence; and
no one can give an adequate picture of the revolution
without dwelling strongly on the theme of domestic
calamity and private suffering.

The unfortunate subject of our story was consigned
to this receptacle of misery, debilitated by fever, and
depressed by bitter disappointment, and was placed
between decks among a crowd of squalid invalids,
whose condition was rendered desperate by the absence
of all the comforts necessary to their existence.
It was now summer, and the heat was equally intolerable
by day and by night; for if they had strength
to crawl on deck during the former, there being no
awning, they were exposed to the broiling sun; while,
during the latter, they were stifling below in crowds,
amid a pestilential atmosphere steaming from the
lungs of death. The uncaulked deck admitted the
rain to pour down upon them; the pumps were continually
going; the water they drank, when the extremity
of thirst drove them to it, was always stale,
filthy, and frequently full of animalculæ; and the allowance
of food scanty, as well as of bad quality.
Add to this, the attendants, the physician, and the
petty officers, were almost without exception insolent
and unfeeling.[1]

To this “Floating Hell,” as she was universally denominated
by the Americans, was John consigned, and
laid side by side with many a fellow-sufferer who
never rose again. They were crowded so close, that
there was scarcely room to turn round in his narrow

straw bed; the heat was intense; the air absolutely
stunk of mortality, and nothing was heard but the
groans of the sick and dying. His feelings, quickened
by the feverish irritation of his pulse, and the pain in
his head, overpowered his firmness, and as he lay
down for the first time in this dreary abode, on the
evening of his arrival, he groaned in agony. The signal
was answered by a wretch, who lay beside him,
in a tone which he thought he had heard before. He
raised himself by a desperate effort, and gazed wildly
around, through the dim twilight of the floating
dungeon. Another groan, followed by inarticulate
murmurs, the product of a diseased fancy, succeeded.
It seemed the voice of his father. “I, too, am mad,”
thought John, as he recalled the time when the captain
had expired in his arms. A few moments again
elapsed, when the same voice exclaimed, in feeble accents,
“Will no one bring me water—water—water?
Oh! give me water!” It was, indeed, the voice of his
father. The young man sprung on his elbow, placed
his face close to that of the poor sufferer, recognised
the pallid features, and casting himself down by his
side, sobbed aloud with mingled feelings of joy and
sorrow.

“My father! my dear father!” cried he, at length,
and clasped the withered, burning hand, that lay languid
and helpless by the side of the old man.

“Who calls me father? I have no children—no
friends here. I cannot even get a drop of water.”

“It is I—your son—come to die with you.”

The captain made an effort to rise, but it was all in
vain. He lay panting and feeble, a little while, and

then desired John to put his face close to his own, that
he might see if it was him. He complied, and the
poor father recognised his son by the light of a lamp
just brought in by one of the attendants. He put his
feeble arms about his neck, and welcomed him, not in
gladness, but bitter sorrow.

“You had better be in your grave, than here,” said
the old soldier; and his voice rambled away in disjointed
murmurs, indicating a mind shattered by pain
and suffering. Then again he cried out, “Water—
water! for God's sake, give me some water!”

None answered, and no water came. John essayed
to rise, but the moment he did so, his head turned, and
he sunk down again on his bed. He then repeated the
call for water, as loud as his weakness would permit,
and at length some was brought. The captain put
forth his hands with famished eagerness, and John
held it to his lips. It seemed to have been dipped
from some standing pool, but such was the thirst of
the poor old soldier, that he emptied the vessel at a
single draught. Then sinking down, he fell into a
doze, interrupted at intervals by low inarticulate
moanings.

It was now the hour when the convalescent patients
who had been permitted to roast themselves on deck
during the day, were driven down into the hold to pass
the night among the dying and the dead. This accession
to their numbers, added to the heat and impurity
of the confined air, created an atmosphere
divested of every wholesome principle of life. A night
ensued, the details of which would have no other purpose
than to convert pity into horror. The ravings of

delirium, mingled with the curses of despair, and the
taunts of unfeeling attendants, who, instead of alleviating
the anguish of the wretched prisoners by sympathy,
indulged in all the bitterness of political animosity.
Ever and anon, some spirit winged its flight
from this tabernacle of wo, and six dead bodies signalized
the triumph of death, that melancholy night.

The son passed a great portion of the time in watching
the father, who sometimes lay perfectly quiet for
an hour or two, and then again commenced his low,
disjointed moans and mutterings. Anxiety for the
sufferings of the captain, in a great measure conquered
all sense of his own, and he was sensible of
nothing but a raging thirst, increasing every moment.
A supply of water had been brought him, but so fætid
and filthy, that he found it impossible to swallow a
single drop. Thus realizing the tortures of Tantalus;
seeing nothing by the light of the dismal lamp, but a
melancholy array of suffering countrymen lying side
by side, and presenting a condensation of misery;
hearing nothing but the moanings of despair, the
screeches of madness, and the rattle in the throat of
death; borne down by weakness, and abandoned by
hope, John lingered out the almost endless night, until
towards the dawn, when nature gave way, and he
sunk into a disturbed sleep.

When he awoke, he felt himself somewhat relieved
of his pains, and found his father partly raised on his
elbow, gazing on him with a look of sorrowing
sympathy.

“You seem better this morning, sir,” said he.

“No, my son, I shall never be better. Who can

hope to get well in such a den of misery as this? No,
John, I shall soon add one more to the long list of martyrs
who have paid their last debt to their country
here. Would to God, I could have died somewhere in
the sight of the world, that those who come after me,
might have known that such a man once lived and
laboured in their cause. Here we die like dogs, are
buried like dogs, and forgotten as soon as dead. Such
is the reward of lowly men, when they pay with their
lives the price of liberty.”

“Father—dear father! do not despair. I hope and
trust you will yet see our people free and happy, and
to be known as one who aided with all his heart in
securing to them the blessing. Some day or other we
shall return home, and enjoy in peace what we have
earned in war, under our own vine and our own
fig-tree.”

“You may, perhaps, my son, but I never shall. Few
that enter this dismal hole, ever return alive. The
only journey they make is to yonder shore, where they
are thrown into a hole with curses on their heads, instead
of prayers, and lay and rot together. I shall
never see home again; never visit any but my last,
long home—whatever happens to my country, I shall
soon be free. In the grave I shall find both repose
and liberty.”

“Who talks of liberty here? Silence, you rebel
rascals!” exclaimed a rough voice, in a foreign accent.
It was the doctor, as he was called, though he disgraced
a profession than which none is more honourably
distinguished for humanity and gentleness. He
had come to take his morning rounds among the sick,

the dying, and the dead; and such another brute, in the
shape of man, perhaps never disgraced his Maker, or
his species. Ignorant and brutal, his only experience
was that acquired by a thousand professional murders.
Instead of sympathizing with the wretched victims to
the fate of war, he met their complaints with unfeeling
taunts, and answered every groan with oaths and
blasphemies. He had come from a distant land, and
was one of those sold by his sovereign, as a slave to
assist in riveting the chains of his fellow creatures in
another quarter of the globe. His practice accorded
with his mission. Some he despatched with pills; some
with blisters; some he bled to death; and some he
forced out of the world by rude attempts to make them
swallow his nostrums. In his nature he was harsh
and cruel, and his prejudices against the cause his
patients had espoused, co-operating with his natural
disposition, together with a long familiarity with such
scenes, had all combined to produce a total insensibility
to their sufferings, if not a more inhuman feeling
of actual enjoyment.

This degenerate professor of the healing art, in the
course of his rounds, expressed his satisfaction at finding
some half a dozen of his patients had, during the
night, rid him of the trouble of attending them. It
would be equally painful and disgusting to repeat his
unfeeling jests, and vulgar ribaldry, for there are degrees
of vice and inhumanity, the details of which
nothing but historical truth will justify; and, though
our sketches of these scenes are drawn from the relations
of those who actually saw and heard what we
relate, we are not writing a history, but a tale. At

length it came to the turn of John and his father to
undergo the torture of an examination. To the latter
he merely observed, “Ah! you will soon be out of your
misery, you rascally rebel;” to the former, he addressed
such consolation as might be expected from such a
comforter. He told him he could cure him, but it was
hardly worth while, for he would certainly be hanged
as soon as he recovered strength enough to mount the
gallows, unless he put on the red coat in earnest, as
he had done in jest, the other day. “What say you,”
added he, “will you enlist in the service of King
George, or stay here and die, like that old rebel scoundrel
by your side.”

The Yankee blood boiled in our hero's veins, as he
listened to this cruel speech; but for once in his life,
discretion come to his aid. He reflected on his utter
helplessness, and the folly of irritating this inhuman
dog in office, at whose mercy his father now lay. Accordingly
he gulped down a flood of glowing indignation,
that added ten-fold to his burning thirst, and
remained silent.

“What, stubborn, hey?” resumed the caitiff; “very
well, we shall soon break down your rebel spirit. I
have a way of doing these things, that never fails to
bring a recruit to King George, or send one to the
d—l. I only wish Davy Sproat, our superintendent,
was not such a sheep-hearted fellow. If he would
only give me fair play, I'd make quick work with such
fellows as you, and turn this into a recruiting, instead
of a hospital-ship.”

“Yes,” said the captain, in a feeble voice, “it is already
a recruiting ship for the armies of death.”

“So, so—you can talk, can you? I'll soon stop your
rebel mouth. Here—swallow these directly. Your
case is already desperate, and requires desperate
remedies. Very likely they'll finish you, but the sooner
you are out of the way the better.” Here he handed
the captain half a dozen pills, and insisted, with bitter
oaths, on his swallowing them.

“I will take no more of your drugs. Your work is
done already. Between you and the fever, I am little
better than a dead man. Let me die in peace.”

The unfeeling monster swore he should not die in
peace, and was about to force the patient to swallow
his pills, when John, forgetting all else but filial affection,
and suddenly invigorated by the feelings of a
son, started on his feet, and seizing the doctor by the
collar, sent him reeling to a respectable distance. The
wretch was a coward, as well as an oppressor, and
only vented his rage in threats and imprecations. He
brandished his gold-headed cane in defiance, called
John by every opprobrious name his knowledge of
English would permit, and finally made his exit swearing
he would accommodate him with a strait jacket.

The agitation of this scene, increased the fever and
weakness of the poor captain, who had now scarcely
strength to answer the inquiries of his son concerning
the particulars of his escape from that death, which
he was assured had taken place before he left him, on
the night of the adventure at Kingsbridge. In as few
words as possible, and with many intervals of breathless
weakness, the captain informed him that he had
only fainted from loss of blood, and was shortly afterwards
found in that state, by a party of British, which

had come out to remove the bodies of their companions
who had fallen in the skirmish. By them he was
taken to the guard-house, and recovering his senses,
was subsequently seized with a slow fever, during the
progress of which he was sent to the hospital-ship to
be cured. “They have succeeded,” said the captain,
dying away with the exhaustion of telling his story.

All that day John watched over his parent, who was
evidently hovering on the verge of that invisible line
which separates the world of flesh from the world of
spirits. Sometimes, after long intervals, he would
seem to rally, and at such times spoke a few words
consecrated to the past and the future. He enjoined
upon his son never to tell his parents the particulars
of his fate. They had already mourned his death, and
it would only be renewing their grief to be told that
he had as it were twice died. At another time, he
conjured him, while he watched over their declining
age, never to forget what he owed to his country and
the sacred cause of freedom.

Thus passed the day, and when evening came, it
brought the doctor's wonted visit, who, though he did
not venture within reach, stood shaking his cane, at
the same time informing John, “If it had not been for
the milk-and-water captain, he would have figured in
irons before now.” John heeded him not, for he was
watching the last moments of an only parent. The
captain was now in a deep, leaden sleep, such as, at
a crisis like this, either ends in death, or from which
he would probably only wake to take one last look at
the world ere he closed his eyes forever. He lay on
his back motionless, and apparently breathless, for the

sound of his breathing could not be heard. Ever and
anon, John placed his hand to his mouth, and felt the
almost imperceptible current of air exhaling its last
sighs, freighted with the departing spirit of the unfortunate
soldier.

Midnight came; the distant lamp shed a gloomy
and uncertain light athwart the abode of despair,
showing a long array of beds, that might aptly be
called graves, for death inhabited them. No sound of
life was heard, except the measured step of the sentinel
above, passing to and fro, and the panting breathings,
or low murmured moans of the tenants of the
dungeon below. At this moment, the dying captain
opened his eyes, and after gazing on John, at first
with a stare of vacant doubt, at length spoke his last
whisper.

“Your hand, John, and place your ear close to my
lips. May Heaven bless you, my parents, and my
country. I have served her faithfully, and now I die
for her. If I had only lived to see her free, I should
die happy and content. But she will be free, so sure
as there is a just God above. May that God receive
my—” His voice became suddenly arrested—he cast
one slow glance around—drew a long, quivering
breath—then another—and then his last. Such was
the end of the gallant old soldier, and such that of
many, many other noble spirits, whose fleshly tabernacles
mix with their parent earth, whose bones moulder
in goodly fellowship together, and whose names
now lay buried in oblivion on the shore of Long
Island.