“‘Regardless of the sacred ties of honor, destitute of the feelings of humanity, and determined to extinguish, if possible, every spark of freedom in this country, the enemy, with the insolent pride of conquerors, gave unbounded scope to the exercise of their tyrannical disposition, infringed their public engagements, and violated their most solemn treaties. Many of our worthiest citizens, without cause, were long and closely confined, some on board prison ships, and others in the town and castle of St. Augustine. Their properties were disposed of at the will and caprice of the enemy, and their families sent to a different and distant part of the continent without the means of support. Many who had surrendered prisoners of war were killed in cold blood. Several suffered death in the most ignominious manner, and others were delivered up to savages and put to tortures, under which they expired. Thus the lives, liberties, and properties of the people were dependent solely on the pleasure of the British officers, who deprived them of either or all on the most frivolous pretenses. Indians, slaves, and a desperate banditti of the most profligate characters were caressed and employed by the enemy to execute their infamous purposes. Devastation and ruin marked their progress and that of their adherents; nor were their violences restrained by the charms or influence of beauty and innocence; even the fair sex, whom it is the duty of all, and the pleasure and pride of the brave to protect, they and their tender offspring, were victims to the inveterate malice of an unrelenting foe. Neither the tears of mothers, nor the cries of infants could excite pity or compassion. Not only the peaceful habitation of the widow, the aged and the infirm, but the holy temples of the Most High were consumed in flames, kindled by their sacrilegious hands. They have tarnished the glory of the British army, disgraced the profession of a British soldiery, and fixed indelible stigmas of rapine, cruelty and peridy, and profaneness on the British name.’”
When in 1808 the Tammany Society of New York laid the cornerstone of a vault in which the bones of many of the prison ship martyrs were laid Joseph D. Fay, Esq., made an oration in which he said:
“But the suffering of those unfortunate Americans whom the dreadful chances of war had destined for the prison-ships, were far greater than any which have been told. In that deadly season of the year, when the dog-star rages with relentless fury, when a pure air is especially necessary to health, the British locked their prisoner, after long marches, in the dungeons of ships affected with contagion, and reeking with the filth of crowded captives, dead and dying. * * * No reasoning, no praying could obtain from his stern tyrants the smallest alleviation of his fate.
“In South Carolina the British officer called Fraser, after trying in every manner to induce the prisoners to enlist, said to them: ‘Go to your dungeons in the prison ships, where you shall perish and rot, but first let me tell you that the rations which have been hitherto allowed for your wives and children shall, from this moment, cease forever; and you shall die assured that they are starving in the public streets, and that you are the authors of their fate.’
“A sentence so terribly awful appalled the firm soul of every listening hero. A solemn silence followed the declaration; they cast their wondering eyes one upon the other, and valor, for a moment, hung suspended between love of family, and love of country. Love of country at length rose superior to every other consideration, and moved by one impulse, this glorious band of patriots thundered into the astonished ears of their persecutors, ‘The prison-ships and Death, or Washington and our country!’
“Meagre famine shook hands with haggard pestilence, joining a league to appall, conquer, and destroy the glorious spirit of liberty.”
CHAPTER XXIII. — A POET ON A PRISON SHIP
Philip Freneau, the poet of the Revolution, as he has been called, was of French Huguenot ancestry. The Freneaus came to New York in 1685. His mother was Agnes Watson, a resident of New York, and the poet was born on the second of January, 1752.