E 281 .C67 , I ~ t I L3 Q-AS~. 05\. DATE . 91~ .31\ C. bS 1 '2oTe.2.~ Acce:ss u:n~ ~o \ 31f, 31 SOU~CE . ,t I I :' ((;S4­ THE DESTRUCTIVE OPERATION OF Foul Air, Tainted Provisions, Bad Water and Personal Filthiness upou Hum<~n Constitutions; exempli tied in the unparalleled Cruelty of the British to the American Captives at New York during the R cvol utionary War, on Board their Prison a11d Hospital Ships, in a comrnunication to Dr. Mitchill, dated September 41 1807. ALSO A Letter to the 'J'annnany Society, upon tht' ~anH! s\JbjeC" t, BY CAPTAIN ALEXANDER CoFFIN, JuN. One of the surviving sufferers, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, HY CHARLES l. BUSHNELL. (YJ "-1 (J ) <.'~ z =:::> -") NEW YORK: PRIVATELY PRINTED. 1865. f [" I' c/ t I . ..... L) I C _.. / ALEXANDER COFFIN, JR. THE DESTRUCTIVE OPERATION OF Foul Air, Tainted Provi~ions, Bad \Vater and Personal Filthinest; upon Human Constiturions; exemplified in the unparalleled Cruelty of the British to the American Captives at New York during the Revolutionary \Var, on Board their Prison a11d Ho~pital Ships, in a communication to Dr. l\Iitchill, dated September 4, 18o7. ALSO A Letter to the Tammany Society, upon the same subject, BY CAPTAIN ALEXANDER CoFFIN, JUN. One of the surviving sufferers, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY CHARLES I. BUSHNELL NEW YORK: PRIVATELY PRINTED. 1 s 0~3. ONLY THIRTY COPIES PRINTED, Ten of which are on fipe paper. j'Vc INTRODUCTION. following conmnmicutions. now, for the first tin!e, printed collectively, were written by Capt. ALEXAXDER CoFFIN, Jr., for many years a resident of the city of New York, and one of its most esteemed and valued citizen~ The first one was written to Samuel L. Mitchill, M.D., Chief Editor of the "Medical Repository," and appeared in that valuable journal in the year 1807. The second was addressed to tlHe T:unm:my Society, and was published by that body in 1808, in the pnmphlet detailing the Proceedings at the Intern1ent of the Bones of the Martyrs of the British Prbon Ships and Hospital Ships during tl1e Revolutionary War. ' These letter,; contain the best account wl1ieh we have of the sanitary comlition of those tloating prisons, and were called forth by the proceedings which were taken in favor of rendering respect, to the remains of the noble pntriots who perished on boanl. Although the communications nre very 1 :Vi-h!·~·~ similar, yet it ''"as ueell>ed uest tl>nt Loth sl:oulu lie printed, there being in each one a few facts wl1icl> nre not elllurace<l in the othes} Capt. Coffin was for several years after the war engaged in tl1e mercantile service, making many Yoyr.ges to foreign countries. Ile suusequently took up l>is residence in the city of New York, where he followed, for a wl1ile, tlH, oecnpation of a me;·cbant. From tl1e year 1815 to the year 1824 l1e l1eld the office of Agent for tl1e 01<1 State Prison, and in 182\J he was appointed an Inspector of Customs, a po~ition wllicl> l,c filled to the time of l1is decease. Capt. Coffin was a man of sterling integrity, and wns pos­ ;;esseu of no ordinary share of ability. lie was a useful and enterprising citizen, a brave and competent offirer, and a pure and ardent patriot. As a husband, he wns kin!l and devoted ; ns a fathm·, watchful and indulgent; as a frien!l, disiutcrested and warm-liearted. Capt. Coffin <lied in the city of New York, on Monday, the first day of February, 1836, at the age of seventy-one years. His funerl•l, which wns largely :m<l respectably atten<led, took place on \\'ednesday following, from liis late residence, No. 3 Leroy-street. From the " .MEDICAL REPOsrroRY/' Yo!. xi., pp. 2G0-2G7. SUALL furnish you with an account of tho treatment that I, with other of my fellow citizens received on board tho Jm·sey and Jolin prison ships; those monuments of British barbarity and infamy. I shall give you nothing but a plain simple statement of facts that cannot be oontro>erted. And I begin my nurrath·e from the time of my leaving the South· Carolina frigate. In June, 1782, I left the above mentioned frigate in the Havanna, on board of which ship I had long served as a mid­ shipman, and made several trading voyages. I sailed early in September from Baltimore for the Ilavanna, in a fleet of about forty sail, most of which were captured, anu we among tho rest, by tho British frigate Ceres, Captain llawkins, a man in 6 every sense of the \YorJ il perfect brute. Although om· com­ mander, Captilin Hughes, was a very gentlemanly man, l10 was treated in the most shameful and abusive manner by saiJ Hawkins, and ordered below to mess with the petty officers. Our officers were put in tl1e cable-tier with the crew, and a guur<l plucetl at the hatchway to prevent more than two going on <leek at a time, and that only for the necessary culls of nature. The provisions serve<l out to us were of the very worst kind, and very short allowance even of that.. They fre­ quently gave us pea-soup, that is, pea-water, for the pease and the soup, all but about n gnllon or two, were tnken out for tho ship's compnny, nnd the coppers filled up with water, and just wnrmed and stirred together, nnd brought down to us in a strnp-tub. And, Sir, I might have defied any person on earth, possessing the most acute olfactory powers, anJ the most refined taste, to decille, either by one or the other, or both of those senses, whether it was pease and water, slush and water, or swill. After living and being treated in this \Yay, subject to every insult and abuse for ten or twelve Jnys, we fell in with the Champion British twenty-gun ship, which wns bound to New York to refit, and were all sent on board of her. The Captain was a true seaman and a gentleman; and our treatment was so different from whnt we hall experienced on board the Ceres, that it was like being removed from pur­ gatory to paradise. Ilis name, I think, was Ed1\arus. We arrived about the beginning of October at New-York, and "·ere immediately sent on board the prison-ship in a small schooner 7 culled, ironically enough, the Relief, commanded by one Gardner, nn Iri~hman. Tl1is scl1ooner Relief plied between the prison-sl1ip nml New-York, and carricJ the water and provisions from the city to the sl1ip. In fact, the sai<l schoonct· migl!t emphatically be termed the Relief, for the exccrnble water nncl providons she curried 1·elieved many of my brave hut unfortunate countrymen by dmth, from the misc1-y and savage treatment tl1ey daily enllmed. Before I go on to relate the treatment we cxpericr.ced on boarJ tl10 Je1·scy, I will make one remark, nnd that is, that if yon were to rake tl10 infernal regions, I Joubt "·bether yon couJJ find such another set of dmmons us the officers an<l men who hml chrrrge of the olJ Jersey prison-sltip. And, Sir, I shall not be surprised if you, possessing those finer feelings which I believe are interwoven in the composition of man, and which are not totally torn from the piece, till, by a long and obstinate per­ severance in the meanest, the basest, and cruelest of all human nrt~, a man becomes lost to every sense of honour, of justice, of humanity, and common honesty ;-I shall not be surprised, I say, if yon, possessing those finer feelings, shouiJ doubt whether men could be so lost to their sncreJ obligations to their Goll, and the moral tics "·hich onglit to hind them to tlteir duty toward their fellow men, ns those men were, who l1nd the charge, und nlso those 'vho had any agency in the affairs of the Jersey prison-ship. On my arriwl on board the olcl Jersey, I founcl there about eleven hundred prisoners; many of them fwd been therefrom th1·ee to six months, but few 8 lived over thttt time if they ditl not get moay uy some means C1' other. They toere generally i.n the most deplorable situation, mere walking skeletons, without money, and 8CM'cely clothes to cover their nakedness, and orerrttn with lice from head to foot . The p1·ovisions, Si1·, that WM'e serred out to us teas not more tlwn four or five ounces of meat, and about as mtwh bread, all .condemned provisions from theh· ships of toar, tohich no doubt toere supplied toith new in their stead, and the new in all pro­ bability cltarged by tlw commissaries to the Jersey. They, however, know best about that,· and lwtoever secure they may noto feel, they toill hare to 1'ender an account of that business to a Judge tolw cannot ue deceired. This fact, lwwet·er, I can safely arer, that both the times tltrtt I toas confined on boar.cl the p1·ison-sliip, there nerer wm·e provisions sert·ed out to the prisoners that would hare been eatable by men that were not lite1·ally in a starving situation. The toater that we tte1·e forced to use toas carried from this city; and I posiUcely a8sert, that I nerer, after having followed the sea thirty yea1·s, had on bom·d of any ship, (ancl I lwt·e been tMee years on some of my voyages) water so brtd as that we were obligecl to use on boa1·d the old Je1·sey; token there toas, as it were to tantalize tts, as fine water, not more than lh1·ee cables lengtltfrom tts, at the mill in the Wallabout, as toas perltaps ever drank.