f that article. These facts are, 1. The death of upwards of eleven
thousand American prisoners, in one prison-ship (the Jersey), and in the
space of three years. 2. General Howe's permitting our prisoners, taken
at the battle of Germantown, and placed under a guard, in the yard
of the State-house of Philadelphia, to be so long without any food
furnished them, that many perished with hunger. Where the bodies lay,
it was seen that they had eaten all the grass around them, within their
reach, after they had lost the power of rising or moving from their
place. 3. The second fact was the act of a commanding officer: the
first, of several commanding officers, and, for so long a time, as must
suppose the approbation of government. But the following was the act
of government itself. During the periods that our affairs seemed
unfavorable, and theirs successful, that is to say, after the evacuation
of New York, and again after the taking of Charleston, in South
Carolina, they regularly sent our prisoners, taken on the seas and
carried to England, to the East Indies. This is so certain, that in
the month of November or December, 1785, Mr. Adams having officially
demanded a delivery of the American prisoners sent to the East Indies,
Lord Caermarthen answered, officially, 'that orders were immediately
issued for their discharge.' M. de Meusnier is at liberty to quote this
fact. 4. A fact, to be ascribed not only to the government, but to the
parliament, who passed an act for that purpose, in the beginning of the
war, was the obliging our prisoners, taken at sea, to join them, and
fight against their countrymen. This they effected by starving and
whipping them. The insult on Captain Stanhope, which happened at Boston
last year, was a consequence of this. Two persons, Dunbar and Lowthorp,
whom Stanhope had treated in this manner (having particularly inflicted
twenty-four lashes on Dunbar), meeting him at Boston, attempted to beat
him. But the people interposed, and saved him. The fact is referred to
in that paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which says, 'He
has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas,
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.' This was
the most afflicting to our prisoners, of all the cruelties exercised on
them. The others affected the body only, but this the mind; they were
haunted by the horror