“We took our stations in the boat in silence. No congratulations were heard among us. Our feelings were too deep for utterance. For my own part, I could not refrain from bursting into tears of joy.
“Still there were moments when it seemed impossible that we were in reality without the limits of the Old Jersey. We dreaded the idea that some unforeseen event might still detain us; and shuddered with the apprehension that we might yet be returned to our dungeons.
“When the Cartel arrived the surviving number of our crew on board the Old Jersey was but thirty-five. This fact being well known to Mr. Tillinghast, and finding that the Cartel had brought forty prisoners, he allowed five of our comrades in the Gun-room to answer to the names of the same number of our crew who had died; and having disguised them in the garb of common seamen, they passed unsuspected.
“It was nearly sunset when we had all arrived on board the Cartel. No sooner had the exchange been completed than the Commissary left us, with our prayers that we might never behold him more. I then cast my eyes towards the hulk, as the horizontal rays of the sunset glanced on her polluted sides, where, from the bend upwards, filth of every description had been permitted to accumulate for years; and the feeling of disgust which the sight occasioned was indescribable. The multitude on her Spar-deck and Fore-castle were in motion, and in the act of descending for the night; presenting the same appearance that met my sight when, nearly five months before, I had, at the same hour, approached her as a prisoner.”
It appears that many other seamen on board the Jersey and the Hospital ships were exchanged as a good result of the Memorial addressed to General Washington. An issue of the Royal Gazette of New York, published on the 17th of July, 1782, contains the following statement:
“The following is a Statement of the Navy Prisoners who have, within the last few days, been exchanged and brought to this city, viz:
“From Boston, 102 British Seamen. “From Rhode Island, 40 British Seamen. “From New London, Conn., 84 British Seamen. “From Baltimore, Md, 23 British Seamen. “Total 249.
“The exertions of those American Captains who published to the world in this Gazette, dated July 3rd, the real state and condition of their countrymen, prisoners here, and the true cause of their durance and sufferings, we are informed was greatly conducive to the bringing this exchange into a happy effect. We have only to lament that the endeavors of those who went, for the same laudable purpose, to Philadelphia, have not hitherto been so fortunate.”
This was published before the release of Captain Dring and the crew of the Chance, and shows that they were not the only prisoners who were so happy as to be exchanged that summer. It is possible that the crew of the Chance is referred to in this extract from the Pennsylvania Packet, Philadelphia, Thursday, August 15th, 1782: “Providence, July 27th. Sunday last a flag of truce returned here from New York, and brought 39 prisoners.”