HMS Jersey (1736)

HMS "Jersey" was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment of dimensions at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched on 14 June 1736. She is perhaps most noted for her service as a prison ship during the American Revolutionary War.

Early career

"Jersey" was built during a time of peace in Britain. Her first battle was in Admiral Edward Vernon's defeated attack on the Spanish port of Cartagena, Colombia, around the beginning of the War of Jenkins' Ear in October 1739. "Jersey" next saw action in the Seven Years' War. "Jersey" also took part in the Battle of Lagos under Admiral Edward Boscawen on 18—19 August 1759.

American Revolutionary War

In March 1771, "Jersey"'s masts were taken down and she was then made a hospital ship in Wallabout Bay, New York, which would later become the Brooklyn Navy Yard. When the American Revolution began, the British used her as a prison ship for captured Continental Army soldiers, making her infamous due to the harsh conditions in which the prisoners were kept. Thousands of men were crammed below decks where there was no natural light or fresh air and few provisions for the sick and hungry. Political tensions only made the prisoners' days worse, with brutal mistreatment by the British guards becoming fairly common. As many as eight corpses a day were buried from the "Jersey" alone before the British surrendered at Yorktown on 19 October 1781. [Stiles, Henry Reed. "Letters from the prisons and prison-ships of the revolution." Thomson Gale, 31 December 1969. ISBN 978-1432812225] [Dring, Thomas and Greene, Albert. "Recollections of the Jersey Prison Ship" (American Experience Series, No 8). Applewood Books. 1 November 1986. ISBN 978-0918222923 (Author)] [Taylor, George. "Martyrs To The Revolution In The British Prison-Ships In The Wallabout Bay." (originally printed 1855) Kessinger Publishing, LLC. 2 October 2007. ISBN 978-0548592175.] [Banks, James Lenox. "Prison ships in the Revolution: New facts in regard to their management." 1903. ASIN: B0008BOCOG.] [Hawkins, Christopher. "The life and adventures of Christopher Hawkins, a prisoner on board the 'Old Jersey' prison ship during the War of the Revolution." Holland Club. 1858. ASIN: B000887ON0] [Andros, Thomas. "The old Jersey captive: Or, A narrative of the captivity of Thomas Andros...on board the old Jersey prison ship at New York, 1781. In a series of letters to a friend." W. Peirce. 1833. ASIN: B00085RDI4.] [ Lang, Patrick J. "The horrors of the English prison ships, 1776 to 1783, and the barbarous treatment of the American patriots imprisoned on them." Society of the Sriendly Sons of Saint Patrick, 1939. ASIN: B0008BI27E.] [Onderdonk. Henry. "Revolutionary Incidents of Suffolk and Kings Counties; With an Account of the Battle of Long Island and the British Prisons and Prison-Ships at New York." Associated Faculty Press, Inc. June 1970. ISBN 978-0804680752.] [West, Charles E. "Horrors of the prison ships: Dr. West's description of the wallabout floating dungeons, how captive patriots fared." Eagle Book Printing Department, 1895. ASIN: B000885ACW.] ["The Destructive Operation of Foul Air, Tainted Provisions, Bad Water, and Personal Filthiness, upon Human Constitutions; Exemplified in the Unparalleled Cruelty of the British to the American Captives at New-York during the Revolutionary War, on Board their Prison and Hospital Ships", Medical Repository, volume 11, 1808 ] When the British evacuated New York at the end of 1783, "Jersey" was abandoned in the harbour.

Christopher Vail, of Southold, who was aboard "Jersey" in 1781, later wrote:

'When a man died he was carried up on the forecastle and laid there until the next morning at 8 o'clock when they were all lowered down the ship sides by a rope round them in the same manner as tho' they were beasts. There was 8 died of a day while I was there. They were carried on shore in heaps and hove out the boat on the wharf, then taken across a hand barrow, carried to the edge of the bank, where a hole was dug 1 or 2 feet deep and all hove in together.'Fact|date=August 2008

In 1778, Robert Sheffield of Stonington, Connecticut, escaped from one of the prison ships, and told his story in the Connecticut Gazette. He was one of 350 prisoners held in a compartment below the decks.

'Their sickly countenances and ghastly looks were truly horrible,' the newspaper wrote on 10 July, without identifying the ship. 'Some swearing and blaspheming; some crying, praying, and wringing their hands, and stalking about like ghosts; others delirious, raving, and storming; some groaning and dying—all panting for breath; some dead and corrupting air so foul at times that a lamp could not be kept burning, by reason of which the boys were not missed till they had been dead ten days.'Fact|date=August 2008

The Department of Defense currently lists 4,435 US battle deaths during the Revolutionary War. Another 20,000 died in captivity, from disease, or for other reasons. Estimates of deaths aboard the New York prison ships vary around 8,000. Prisoner exchanges were hardly possible for two reasons: the British often captured far more prisoners than the Americans did, and George Washington did not favour exchanging veteran British soldiers for ragtag American troops, as it would only put his army at a greater disadvantage.Fact|date=August 2008

Memorial

The remains of those that died aboard the prison-ships were reinterred in Fort Greene Park after the 1808 burial vault near the Brooklyn Navy Yard had collapsed. In 1908, one hundred years after the burial ceremony, the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument was dedicated.Fact|date=August 2008

References

*Lavery, Brian (2003) "The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850." Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.

External links

* [http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/north5.html British prison ships]
* [http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs425a,0,6698945.story?coll=ny-lihistory-navigation Long Island History]