Prison ships, often called "death ships" for their deplorable conditions, were routinely used by the British during the war, and the Jersey had a reputation for being the worse, earning the nickname "Hell." Disease and vermin ran rampant among the starving prisoners. The bodies of inmates who died might not be recovered for a week or more, left to rot in the cramped, airless hulls in which the unfortunate passengers were forced to spend twenty-four hours a day. By the end of the war, approximately eight thousand people were estimated to have died aboard prison ships in New York alone.
(from George Washington's Secret Six, by Brian Kilmeade)
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