Raynors 2012-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/27/2012
Engraving, “Interior of the old Jersey Prison ship, in the Revolutionary War,” lightly hand tinted, 11-3/4” x 8-1/2,” withdrawn from book, c1855 Caption in part reads, "I found myself in a loathsome prison, among a collection of the most wretched and disgusting looking objects, ghastly with inhaling an impure atmosphere, exposed to contagion, and surrounded with the horrors of sickness and death. here, thought I, must I linger out the morning of my life in tedious days and sleepless nights, enduring a weary and degrading captivity ...” Some loss of [1/2”] paper at fold, else VG. One of the most gruesome chapters in the story of America's struggle for independence from Britain occurred in the waters near New York Harbor, near the current location of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. From 1776 to 1783, the British forces occupying New York City used abandoned or decommissioned warships anchored just offshore to hold those soldiers, sailors and private citizens they had captured in battle or arrested on land or at sea. Some 11,000 prisoners died aboard the prison ships over the course of the war, many from disease or malnutrition. Many of these were inmates of the notorious HMS Jersey, which earned the nickname "Hell" for its inhumane conditions and the obscenely high death rate of its prisoners.
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