Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/213

Rh and the eighth part of a pound of meat per day. This regulation continued for two or three weeks, when they one and all declared they could not any longer exist on the small allowance they received; that they must, without doubt, perish. The hunger and thirst being at this time so great, and the children continually crying out for bread and drink, some of the men, resolved, at all events, to procure bread, broke open the apartment wherein it was kept, and took some. This was discovered by the captain, as were also those who did the same, when each of them was ordered to, and actually did, receive, after being first tied, a number of lashes on their bare backs well laid on. The whole of the passengers were also punished for this offence. The men received no bread, the women but one biscuit. This continued for nine days, when the men were again allowed one biscuit per day; however, the captain would at least make or proclaim a fast day. In this situation their condition became dreadful, so much so that five and twenty men, women, and children actually perished for the want of the common necessaries of life, in short, for the want of bread. The latter were ten in number, all at the time at the breasts of their mothers. The hunger was so great on board that all the bones about the ship were hunted up by them, pounded with a hammer and eaten; and what is more lamentable, some of the deceased persons, not many hours before their death, crawled on their hands and feet to the captain, and begged him, for God's sake, to give them a mouthful of bread or a drop of water to keep them from perishing, but their supplications were in vain; he most obstinately refused, and thus did they perish. The cry of the children for bread was, as I am informed, so great that it would be impossible for man to describe it, nor can the passengers believe that any other person excepting Captain Conklin would be found whose heart would not have melted with compassion to hear those little inoffensive ones cry for bread. The number of passengers, when the ship arrived at Amboy, amounted to one hundred and thirty-two. Fifty-one remain there still; the others have been disposed of.

The passengers further state that they did not receive the tobacco, the fish, nor the potatoes, as they ought to have received, and which they were entitled to as by their contract with the captain, neither did they receive their dram but four or five times during their passage, and no butter after they left the British port until within three or four days ago.

The foregoing are the principal causes of complaint, and indeed they appear very serious ones too to me. However, I having heard those complaints, and understanding from a number of citizens of Amboy that the captain's intention was to take the ship to New York, leave her, as also the State of New York, and go to his native State, Rhode Island, I was at a loss to know how to act or what to do, as my instructions were not for New York. However, after reflection I determined to push on for New York, and there inform the German Society of his conduct. I did so, and on Sunday arrived there, when, after some little enquiry, I found the President of the society, Mr. Philip I. Arcularius. To him I communicated the whole of this disagreeable affair. His feelings can be more easily conceived than described. He, however, gave directions to have the officers of the society summoned to meet the next day, which was done, and they all attended, excepting one of the assistants, and, after hearing the