The cruel treatment of Americans captured by the British had long engaged Washington's attention, and reference to it here is in point. Many of their prisoners were confined in old ships, where they suffered all that hunger, thirst, filth, and abuse could inflict. On account of the dreadful sufferings endured by the prisoners, these ships were called "floating hells." The "Jersey Prison Ship" and the old "Sugar House," converted into prisons by Lord Howe, are notorious for their infamous character in American history. Congress appealed in vain to the commanding British general, and Washington wrote to him upon the subject again and again. In one letter Washington said: "From the opinion I have ever been taught to entertain of your lordship's humanity, I will not suppose that you are privy to proceedings of so cruel and unjustifiable a nature; and I hope that, upon making the proper inquiry, you will have the matter so regulated that the unhappy persons whose lot is captivity may not in the future have the miseries of cold, disease, and famine added to their other misfortunes.... I should not have said thus much, but my injured countrymen have long called upon me to endeavor to obtain a redress of their grievances, and I should think myself as culpable as those who inflict such severities upon them were I to continue silent." A Rev. Mr. Andros of Massachusetts was confined in the "Jersey Prison Ship." After his escape and the close of the war, he published a small book detailing the sufferings of its occupants. One brief paragraph therefrom is all our space will permit. "Her dark and filthy exterior corresponded with the death and despair reigning within. It is supposed that eleven thousand American seaman perished in her. None came to relieve their woes. Once or twice, by order of a stranger on the quarter-deck a bag of apples was hurled promiscuously into the midst of hundreds of prisoners, crowded as thick as they could stand, and life and limb were endangered in the struggle. The prisoners were secured between the decks by iron gratings; and when the ship was to be cleared of watch, an armed guard forced them up to the winches, amid a roar of execrations and reproaches, the dim light adding to the horrors of the scene. Thousands died whose names have never been known, perishing when no eye could witness their fortitude, nor praise their devotion to their country." The brave Lingan, hero of Fort Washington, was confined in the "Jersey;" and it was amid the horrors around him that he exclaimed: "Sweet, O my country, should be thy liberties, when they are purchased at this monstrous price!"