(The cow represents British commerce; while the American cuts off her horns, a Hollander milks her, the Frenchman and Spaniard help themselves to the milk, the British merchant wrings his hands in despair, and the British Lion sleeps through it all. In the background are the two Howes asleep, and the _Eagle_ high and dry, the rest of the fleet being nowhere visible.) ] To this may be added a statement from the London “Remembrancer” (vol. v), which says that “the number of English vessels employed in the West India trade, captured by American cruisers, amounted on the 1st February, 1777, to two hundred and fifty sail: value of their cargoes, about ten millions of dollars. In the course of one week fourteen English vessels were carried into Martinique. So overstocked was the market of this island, by these privateers, that English silk stockings, which had usually sold for two or three dollars, were disposed of for _one_ dollar. Sailors went from door to door, offering their prize goods for sale; nor could they dispose of Irish linens for more than _two dollars per piece_. Other goods sold in proportion. _Of a fleet of sixty vessels, from Ireland, for the West Indies, thirty-five were captured by American privateers!_” Still another British account of the distress occasioned by the privateers, written from Grenada, says: “We are happy if we can get anything for money by reason of the quantity of vessels that are taken by American privateers. A fleet of vessels came from Ireland a few days ago. From sixty vessels that departed from Ireland not above twenty-five arrived in this and neighboring islands, the others, it is thought, being all taken by the American privateers. God knows if this American war continues much longer we shall all die with hunger. There was a Guineaman that came from Africa with 450 negroes, some thousand weight of gold dust and a great many elephant teeth; the whole cargo being computed to be worth twenty thousand pounds sterling, taken by an American privateer, a brig mounting fourteen cannon, a few days ago.” [Illustration: The British Prison Ship _Jersey_. _From an old wood-cut._] A brief reference to the prison ship in which the privateers were confined when captured by the enemy on the American coast will serve very well to close this chapter. The reference may be brief, because it is so notorious in the annals of civilized warfare as to be known to every schoolboy. The special jail of the privateers was the dismantled man-o’-war hulk _Jersey_. As consorts she had four other hulks, but the _Jersey_ was the receiving ship. If the unfortunates captured and taken to England were, by the deliberate and publicly debated act of Parliament, fed with an allowance of bread that was half a pound less per day than was allowed to the hated Frenchmen, one would naturally expect still worse treatment for those who were kept by jailers unrestrained by the sentiments of the humane portion of their countrymen.