"The British Prison Hulks" Topic

The comment was made in another thread, 'Dark Violence and Atrocities in the Revolutionary War' that incarcerating American POWs was not deliberate.

'If the deaths were incidental to other things -- like keeping the costs low, for example -- then it was not deliberate.'

The narrative in the book The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: An Untold Story of the American Revolution by Robert Watson clearly demonstrates that the maltreatment of the American prisoners was deliberate and cruel, and was the cause of the high number of deaths on the ships.

'…long before the Geneva Convention, concerns over the mistreatment of prisoners arose during the Revolutionary War, when some of the most odious and vile crimes in American history occurred at the hands of the British and were directed against soldiers and sailors fighting for independence.'-xii.

'…history has forgotten the struggles that occurred on an old, rotting prison ship moored off the coast of Brooklyn, despite the fact that as many as 11,500 prisoners may have died in her holds-a number roughly twice the number of American lives lost in combat during the entirety of the war!'-xii-xiii.

'…the British command intended the Jersey to be a weapon of terror. The threat of imprisonment in her deadly bowels, they reasoned, would deter even the most ardent of patriots from fighting. And so they crammed thousands into the dark, dank hull and moored the ship far enough from shore to prevent the disease that soon permeated her rotting timbers from inflicting the city, yet close enough to be seen and smelled by all who passed by…'

Another interesting book on the British use of prison hulks is The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement 1776-1857 by Charles Campbell.

Hence my use of the word "if". So who exactly was responsible? "British command" is vague.

The man in charge of the hulks was David Sproat. As stated in the narrative on page 42, Sproat made the prisoners life aboard the hulk 'a living hell.'

General Howe 'refused to build proper facilities.'-42. And it was his decision, along with Commissary Joshua Loring, to use the hulks.

Loring was a Boston Tory who believed that the American prisoners were 'not deserving of humane treatment.'-34.

Loring was also a crook. His 'scheme was simple: funds for a prisoner's rations, albeit minimal, continued until the prisoner was deceased. Loring appears to have delayed and underreported incidents of prisoner deaths in order to skim money from the prison accounts. He was getting rich…'-35.

And, apparently, Howe was having an affair with Mrs Loring…the London joke on the overall situation was 'Loring fingered the cash, while the general enjoyed the madam.'-35.

The bottom line, however, is that 'Loring treated the prisoners in New York horribly.'-35.

Howe was involved with the treatment of the prisoners and Loring and Sproat were those who actually directly responsible for the bad treatment of the prisoners.

I would highly recommend reading the book…

Sir William he, snug as a flea
all winter lay a snoring,
nor thought of harm as he lay warm
in bed with Mrs. Loring.

Not sure that is history rather than Patriot propaganda, but hey.

IF Loring acted with deliberate malice and IF Howe allowed it then of course they are guilty of deliberate cruelty.

A grim episode in colonial history to be sure. Interesting to note that Jersey was used as a prison hulk in the last years of the war- from 1780 onwards – but Sir William Howe had returned to Britain in 1778.

With a substantial portion of York city destroyed by fire there was no easy solution to the POW accomodation, bearing in mind tha British troops were living in huts burrowed into the surrounding hillsides

And while, 'thousands' may have been incarcerated on the Jersey over time, the initial complement of prisoners was 400, rising to 800 a year later, with 1100 being the highest total recorded in 1783- so, the sentence quoted: "they crammed thousands into the dark, dank hull" would seem to be exaggerating for effect. Why would that have been necessary given the grim testimony of the five ‘survivor' accounts Watson draws upon?

As for other material in the passages quoted from the Watson book I see a lot of assumptions offered as to the motivation of individuals involved, be it 'the British command,' Sproat, Loring. qualified by ‘it appears' and ‘apparentlys' which are not very convincing illustrations of your argument as they stand. I should be interested to know what documented facts Watson sites to support those statements (although I think there is little doubt that William Howe was cavorting with Mrs Loring).

The figure of 11,500 dead appears to come from a newspaper cutting of 1783. About 8000 seems to be the average of suggested totals for those who did not survive mprisonment in the Jersey, although of course exact figures do not exist(See Peckham 'The Toll of Independence'). That is a terrible enough figure without sexing up the story for a domestic readership.

It has been remarked in previous threads on this topic that in the era of the AWi, it was accepted that each side was responsible for the maintenance of their troops held captive by the opposition The status of those captured on American privateers complicated the matter further as these were regarded as common criminals until very late in the war.

We are told that Washington declined to exchange American prisoners of war on any substantial scale since it was deemed the British would benefit more from the transaction that the American side. That would certainly seem to be a deliberate act.

Not defending anyone's actions here, but the conditions of the prison hulks in the Colonies, was not any worse then the conditions of the English's own prison hulks in England.

Jersey held 400 prisoners in 1780; 850-1,000 in 1781; 1,000-1,200 in 1782; and 1,000-1,200 in 1783.

And that was in addition to the other prison hulks being used since 1776.

See Watson, Appendix II, pages 241-242.

And it looks as if the author did his homework, using primary source documents as often as practicable.

IF Loring acted with deliberate malice and IF Howe allowed it then of course they are guilty of deliberate cruelty.

There really isn't any 'if.' Both Loring and Sproat acted inhumanely at best and it was deliberate.

I would highly recommend reading the book…

The British have gone out of their way to be brutally cruel to their prisoners in a number of wars; usually when they were dealing with non Europeans or people they believed had some nerve to defy them like Americans and Boers.

'The British' – every man jack of 'em

We are told that Washington declined to exchange American prisoners of war on any substantial scale since it was deemed the British would benefit more from the transaction that the American side.

It was a little more complicated than that, and a lot of the difficulty in prisoner exchanges emanated from the British.

@42flanker

yes, I meant the British army not the British people

Looks like like by comparison, the British and Hessians captured at Saratoga had a relatively easy time.

link

Compared to the American prisoners aboard the hulks, the British and German prisoners were not cruelly treated and that was noted by the British when prisoners were exchanged.

Many of the American prisoners died after release, some on the way home…

My $.02 USD,
As in all wars, the conditions aboard the prison hulks was a war crime. Repeated by the British Army during the Boer War, the U.S. during it's own Civil War and in just about any war in the history of man.
As for the British Army, look at how they handled the Scottish after the '46---only thirty years earlier. Did anybody really expect a different treatment from them?
Tom Semian

I did my MA research and thesis on the prison hulks. The only thing you can say is that they were overcrowded. But so were the land-based prisons in NY. During that period, they did not have a clear understanding of disease and its causes, proper diet vs. malnutrition, and other issues that resulted from the overcrowding in the prisons. Some of what was written about them at the time is true. Some is clearly propaganda.

Let me give you an example. I focused on the diet of prisoners. By their own testimony, the prisoners received, more or less, the same diet as a landsman at sea (ie, what a soldier was fed when they were transported by the RN). Many had money with them onboard the hulks but all testified they were shaken down on boarding. What good was money? Boats put out from Brooklyn and Manhattan to sell food stuffs, tobacco, tea and other items to the prisoners. These were called 'bum-boats' and many prisoners benefited from them.

Here's another. Prisoners almost universally complained about occasionally receiving rotten meat. Guess what? RN sailors complained about occasionally receiving rotten meat. Now, it wasn't a given that the sailors would be treated better than the prisoners. There was no guarantee that when the rotten meat was complained about, it would be made right. I forget offhand, but from what I recall it took a panel of two or three officers to condemn a barrel of meat. It was a big deal because the purser – who provided the ship's stores – was a private businessman, contracted into his role – not an officer, warrant or NCO of the RN. By condemning the meat, the officers would cut into his profits, so to avoid complaints or legal action, it was pretty rare. There was also, however, a lot of graft and corruption in the system, and the king was occasionally defrauded by his officers and pursers as well. So what, you ask? The prison ships, though guarded by Loyalist regiments, operated on principle in the same manner as active RN ships.

I could go on, but I won't. The biggest problem in the histories is that ALL subsequent writers took the prisoners at face value and reprinted what they said without question or critical thought or further research to find out more beyond their words. So even into the 21st century, people are still freaking out over this. Were the hulks brutal places to be quartered? Yes, unquestionably, but you have to read the post-war accounts of prisoners' treatment, some written as late as the 1830s, and question the inconsistencies and outright propaganda included to prove one's patriotic roots.

Oh, and by the way, for those Americans who love to bash the Brits over things like this, the rebel New York government operated prison ships on the Hudson where they kept both British soldiers and civilian Loyalists. There isn't a lot of information available on their conditions, but from what little I've found, they weren't a whole lot better.

Thank you Sundance, for that usefull setting in context.

@ auttiecat- Sundance's studies have put some of what you write into a historical perspective. The conditions in ACW PoW camps, or the concentration camps in South Africa (nothing to do with the eugenics and racial policies of National Socialists, who adopted the term as a euphemism), were the result of bad planning, lack of adequate resources and infrastructure, as well as incompetence and inexperience, not least in operating establishments on that scale. Sundance's point about ignorance of disease vectors is particularly pertinent.

These were compounded by a degree of political indifference and at higher levels of command, and doubtless of callousness on the part of individuals staffing the facilities. However, the notion that on a grand scale belligerents sat rubbing their hands in glee at the suffering endured is of course without foundation.

A war crime is not merely a situation or set of circumstances, in a given period, that might be considered by most to be culpably inhumane. There has to be a definition in law of conduct that falls in the category of a war crime. Before the international conventions of the C20th those definitions did not exist- and even then made little difference until after 1945.

As for the aftermath of the '45, the picture has been clouded by romanticism. The defeated Jacobites were not 'Scots,' the vast majority of whom did not support the attempted coup. In the government's eyes they were proscribed rebels, and much of the pursuit and punitive action was carried out by Scots authorities. Moreover the harrying and persecution that ensued was hardly different to the treatment of rebel forces elsewhere during the C18th or 19th century; by the republican French in Brittany and Italy, for example, or for instance by American forces in punitive actions against Native Americans, or the putting down of risings across Europe in 1848 or in Paris in 1871. The list could be much longer.

To single out the example under discussion as evidence of a particularly British cultural predilection for vindictive inhumanity would be, to coin a phrase, both erroneous and unhistorical.

Yes.

"Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
Rule Britannia
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves."

Maybe they should've stopped to think if anyone else wanted to be slaves.