Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/212

184 the face. The complaints were numerous which they made against the captain respecting the bad treatment they received from him on and during the passage. The complaints which I conceive are of the greatest importance I shall briefly state. My intention was to have had them confirmed with their oaths, but as they are made by every one of the passengers I thought it unnecessary. They are that they left Hamburg some time in November last, and arrived at Tönningen, where lay the ship General Wayne, John Conklin, Master, bound for New York, with whom they entered into a certain agreement, on condition that he, the said Conklin, would take them to New York, that during the passage they should be allowed a certain quantity of bread, meat, peas, fish, vinegar, butter, potatoes, tobacco, etc., as also a dram in the morning, as will appear by a reference to the agreement itself, each passenger having one. About fourteen days after they left Tönningen they put into an English port near Portsmouth, where they remained about four weeks; that during that time a British recruiting officer came on board the ship, when the captain in formed them that they now had an opportunity of enlisting, that those who so chose to do might, as the recruiting officer was on board the ship. Ten men consented, and entered their names, giving to the other passengers their reasons for so doing, namely, that, having been already put on allowance by the captain, they were apprehensive that, should they stay on board the ship, they should be starved before they arrived in America. Amongst those that enlisted was a man who had a wife and child on board the ship; that eight days after they had thus entered their names they were taken from the ship by the recruiting officer, although some of them wished to withdraw their names, but to no effect; go they must. The woman and her child are now at Amboy, lamenting the loss of the husband and father.

On the last day of their remaining in this British port, the same recruiting officer came the third time on board the ship, when the mate called four or five of the passengers by name, and told them, in the presence of the captain, they must be soldiers and go with the officer. They replied they had no intention of being soldiers, they wished to go to America; whereupon the captain and mate seized one of them by name Samuel Vogel, and threw him into the boat belonging to the recruiting officer, which was alongside of the ship. However, Vogel got back again into the ship, went below, and hid himself, but was again compelled to come forward with his clothes, when the recruiting officer, observing him weep, declared he would not have him, and left the ship, mentioning that he should not have again come on board had not the captain, the day before, pressed him so to do. The captain was highly dissatisfied with these men for refusing to go, and declared that they should not have anything to eat on board the ship, that they might starve, and ordered one of them to be flogged for refusing, which was performed, too, in a cruel manner. That the whole of the passengers, when at this British port, complained to the captain that the treatment they received was not such as was agreed to between them at Tönningen. He replied they were not then in Tönningen, neither were they in America, but in England. They then set sail, and after fourteen days had elapsed the captain informed them that they would get nothing to eat except bread and meat. After this each person received two biscuits, one pint of water,