Sunday—1 lb. biscuit, 1 lb. pork, and half a pint of peas.
Monday—1 lb. biscuit, 1 pint oatmeal, 2 oz. butter.
Tuesday-1 lb. biscuit, and 2 lbs. beef.
Wednesday—1-1/2 lbs. flour, and 2 ounces suet.
Thursday—Same as Sunday.
Friday—Same as Monday.
Saturday—Same as Tuesday.
Two thirds of this allowance for each man would have been sufficient to sustain life, had it been of moderately good quality. They never received butter, but a rancid and ill-smelling substance called sweet oil. “The smell of it, accustomed as we were to everything foul and nauseous, was more than we could endure. We, however, always received it, and gave it to the poor, half-starved Frenchmen who were on board, who took it gratefully, and swallowed it with a little salt and their wormy bread.”
Oil had been dealt out to the prisoners on the Good Hope, but there it was hoarded carefully, for they were allowed lights until nine P.M., so they used it in their lamps. But on the Jersey, Dring declares that neither light nor fire was ever allowed.
Often their provisions were not dealt out in time to be cooked that day, and then they had to fast or eat them raw. The cooking was done in the “Great Copper” under the forecastle. This was a boiler enclosed in brick-work about eight feet square. It was large enough to contain two or three hogsheads of water. It was square, and divided into two portions. In one side peas and oatmeal were boiled in fresh water. On the other side the meat was boiled in salt water, and as we have already stated the food was poisoned by copperas. This was the cause, it is believed, of many deaths, especially as the water was obtained from alongside the ship, and was extremely unwholesome.
The portion of each mess was designated by a tally fastened to it by a string. Hundreds of tallies were to be seen hanging over the sides of the brick-work by their strings, each eagerly watched by some member of the mess, who waited to receive it.
The meat was suffered to remain in the boiler a certain time, then the cook’s bell was rung, and the pittance of food must be immediately removed, whether sufficiently cooked or not. The proportion of peas and oatmeal belonging to each mess was measured out of the copper after it was boiled.
The cook alone seemed to have much flesh on his bones. He had been a prisoner, but seeing no prospect of ever being liberated he had offered his services, and his mates and scullions were also prisoners who had followed his example. The cook was not ill-natured, and although often cursed by the prisoners when out of hearing, he really displayed fortitude and forbearance far beyond what most men would have been capable of showing. “At times, when his patience was exhausted, he did, indeed, make the hot water fly among us, but a reconciliation was usually effected with little difficulty.
“Many of the different messes had obtained leave from His Majesty the Cook to prepare their own rations, separate from the general mess in the great boiler. For this purpose a great many spikes and hooks had been driven into the brick-work by which the boiler was enclosed, on which to suspend their tin kettles. As soon as we were permitted to go on deck in the morning, some one took the tin kettle belonging to the mess, with as much water and as many splinters of wood as we had been able to procure during the previous day, and carried them to the Galley; and there having suspended his kettle on one of the hooks or spikes stood ready to kindle his little fire as soon as the Cook or his mates would permit. It required but little fire to boil our food in these kettles, for their bottoms were made concave, and the fire was applied directly in the centre, and let the remaining brands be ever so small they were all carefully quenched; and having been conveyed below were kept for use on a future occasion.
“Much contention often arose through our endeavors to obtain places around the brick-work, but these disputes were always promptly decided by the Cook, from whose mandate there was no appeal. No sooner had one prisoner completed the cooking for his mess, than another supplicant stood ready to take his place; and they thus continued to throng the galley, during the whole time that the fire was allowed to remain under the Great Copper, unless it happened to be the pleasure of the Cook to drive them away. *[...] Each man in the mess procured and saved as much water as possible during the previous day; as no person was ever allowed to take more than a pint at a time from the scuttle-cask in which it was kept. Every individual was therefor obliged each day to save a little for the common use of the mess on the next morning. By this arrangement the mess to which I belonged had always a small quantity of fresh water in store, which we carefully kept, with a few other necessaries, in a chest which we used in common.
“During the whole period of my confinement I never partook of any food which had been prepared in the Great Copper. It is to this fact that I have always attributed, under Divine Providence, the degree of health which I preserved on board. I was thereby also, at times, enabled to procure several necessary and comfortable things, such as tea, sugar, etc. so that, wretchedly as I was situated, my condition was far preferable to that of most of my fellow sufferers, which has ever been to me a theme of sincere and lasting gratitude to Heaven.