“In December, 1776, the American board of war, after procuring such evidence as convinced them of the truth of their statements, reported that: ‘There were 900 privates and 300 officers of the American army, prisoners in the city of New York, and 500 privates and 50 officers in Philadelphia. That since the beginning of October, all these officers and privates had been confined in prisons or in the provost. That, from the best evidence the subject could admit of, the general allowance of the prisoners did not exceed four ounces of meat a day, and that often so damaged as to be uneatable. That it had been a common practice of the British to keep their prisoners four or five days without a morsel of meat and thus tempt them to enlist to save their lives.’ “Many were actually starved to death, in hope of making them enroll themselves in the British army. The American sailors when captured suffered even more than the soldiers, for they were confined on board prison ships in great numbers, and in a manner which showed that the British officers were willing to treat fellow beings, whose only crime was love of liberty, worse than the vilest animals; and indeed in every respect, with as much cruelty as is endured by the miserable inhabitants of the worst class of slave ships. * * * In the course of the war it has been asserted on good evidence, that 11,000 prisoners died on board the Jersey. * * * These unfortunate beings died in agony in the midst of their fellow sufferers, who were obliged to witness their tortures, without the power of relieving their dying countrymen, even by cooling their parched lips with a drop of cold water, or a breath of fresh air; and, when the last breath had left the emaciated body, they sometimes remained for hours in close contact with the corpse, without room to shrink from companions that Death had made so horrible, and when at last the dead were removed, they were sent in boats to the shore, and so imperfectly buried that long after the war was ended, their bones lay whitening in the sun on the beach of Long Island, a lasting memorial of British cruelty, so entirely unwarranted by all the laws of war or even common humanity. “They could not even pretend that they were retaliating, for the Americans invariably treated their prisoners with kindness, and as though they were fellow men. All the time that these cruelties were performed those who were deprived of every comfort and necessary were constantly entreated to leave the American service, and induced to believe, while kept from all knowledge of public affairs, that the republican cause was hopeless; that all engaged in it would meet the punishment of traitors to the king, and that all their prospect of saving their lives, or escaping from an imprisonment worse than death to young and high-spirited men, as most of them were, would be in joining the British army, where they would be sure of good pay and quick promotion.