which they suffered everything but death from hunger and cold. Nor was this the worst. The prisoners, from these and other causes, became very sickly, and died off in great numbers. Abel Wells and four others of the Fort Montgomery party, being tailors, were sent from the prisonship to the Provost, November 24th, to make clothing for the prisoners there.[27] They informed Judge Fell, a prisoner, that their company was then reduced to one hundred. This mortality would seem to have been heavy among Col. Dubois's men, very few of whom ever rejoined their regiment. Van Arsdale was taken sick about the 20th of December, and had the good fortune to be sent to the hospital, where he had some care, and soon recovered. Shortly after going there he was joined by Sears, who was in a suffering and helpless condition, his feet and legs having been badly frozen in the prisonship. Fortunately Van Arsdale was getting better, so that he was of great service to his friend, and which also tended to divert his mind from his own misfortunes. He even begged "coppers" from the British officers to buy little comforts for Sears; but which, had it been for himself, he declared he would have scorned to do, in any extremity. Sears always held that Van Arsdale saved his life, and he spoke feelingly of his kindness to him to the day of his death. Van Arsdale finding his condition in the hospital much more tolerable, managed to prolong his stay, by tying up his head and feigning illness when the doctor made his daily call. The latter would leave him some powders, but only to be thrown away. This did not long avail him, and when reported well enough to remove, he was taken back to the prisonship, to endure its indescribable miseries for several weary months. Words cannot portray the horrors of this prison, which was loathsome with filth and vermin, and where to the pangs of hunger and thirst, were aided the alternate extremes of heat and cold. Especially when the hatches were closed, as was always done at night, the heat and stench caused by the feverish breath of hundreds of prisoners became almost suffocating. Consequently dysentery, smallpox and jail fever made fearful ravages. The ghastly faces of the starved and sick, and the pale corpses of the dead, the groans of the dying, the commingled voices of weeping, cursing and praying, joined to the ravings of the delirious; such were the shocking scenes to which Van Arsdale was a witness, and which added to his personal sufferings, made his situation one of the most appalling to be conceived of. Fitly was this dungeon described by one of its inmates as "a little epitome of Hell!" Kept near to starvation, Van Arsdale, when allowed with other prisoners, a few at a time, to go up on the quarter deck, was glad to eat the beans or crusts he skimmed from the swill kept there to feed pigs, that he might partially relieve the gnawings of hunger! But we forbear further comment