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HMS Jersey

In March 1771, the aging Jersey was converted to a hospital ship.

HMS Jersey (1736)

In March 1771, Jersey's masts and spars were removed and she was officially classed as a hospital ship moored in Wallabout Bay. (Paine 273)

Paine, Lincoln P. Ships of the World : An Historical Encyclopedia. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1997. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.pstcc.edu:3443/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=10175&scope=site.

ISBN 9780395715567

HMS Jersey

Cray, Robert E. “Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead: Revolutionary Memory and the Politics of Sepulture in the Early Republic, 1776-1808.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 3, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1999, pp. 565–90, https://doi.org/10.2307/2674561.

This article from the JSTOR database shows that the HMS Jersey has been a complex political subject since the atrocities that occurred on the prison ship. The Wikipedia article mostly discusses the subject in a patriotic way that focuses on the sacrifices of the American soldiers. This Article shows that even a tragic event like this can be used for political ends. The Republicans and the Federalists both used the tragic event for their own political advancement. While the British prison ships are often seen as only being used by the British for political gain it is clear that American political parties also used them for their own advantage as well. 

Held, James E. "British Prison Ships A SEASON IN HELL." Military History 11 2006: 60-7. ProQuest. Web. 15 Oct. 2021 . https://www.proquest.com/docview/212610778/abstract/7C7953EBF90E46ECPQ/1?accountid=34788#:~:text=season-hell/docview/-,212610778,-/se-2%3Faccountid

This article from the Research Library database shows that the HSM Jersey did have a positive effect for the British during the Revolutionary War. This article shows that the British were able to use the hellish conditions of the HSM Jersey to convert American soldiers to the side of the British. The majority of articles focus on the negative impact that the prison ship had on the people that we held there, however there is another side to the prison ship. If the British were able to get even one soldier to turn to their side they stood to gain intelligence, boost morale within their own ranks, and decrease morale in the American ranks.

Paragraph 1

The early Republic, as Susan Davis, Alfred Young, David Waldstreicher, and others have demonstrated, was a minefield of contested memories, as Americans celebrated and debated their national identity in parades, toasts, and orations.5 Mariners featured in the discussion. Hailed as patriots for resisting the British yet condemned on occasion as a "disorderly set" prone to "mutinous complaints," Revolutionary Jack Tars were both complimented and criticized. Their modest social niche and independent behavior marked them as a group apart. Like soldiers praised in war and scorned in peace, Jack engendered mixed emotions, subject to political crosswinds. Federalists and Republicans, divided in the 1790s by the Revolution's legacy, elevated or ignored seamen: Federalists championed sailors as bulwarks of maritime defense against France yet often acquiesced to British impressment practices, preferring to blame Republican antinavy policies; Republicans opposed to a large navy nevertheless saluted seized mariners as martyrs to British tyranny. If Americans naturally desired a past peopled by heroic, virtuous titans, they expressed ambivalence about sailors' position in the national pantheon.6

Ceremoniously reinterred during the Embargo Act, a controversial Jeffersonian measure, the Revolutionary dead became Republican political symbols designed to enhance memories of past British injustice and rally support for the much- attacked embargo. Federalists derided what they saw as partisan manipula- tion of the past. Conscious of approaching elections, both sides angled for artisan support. The Embargo Act's repeal in i809, however, turned the deceased mariners into casualties of renewed neglect, their new burial site without monument. Sacrificed upon the altar of political factionalism, the Jersey dead demonstrate the class contours and partisan character of Revolutionary memory in the early Republic.

Paragraph 2

Although Thomas Andros made off from Jersey, and prisoners on Good Hope fired the ship in a desperate attempt to flee, escapes were few from vessels anchored 300 yards from shore. Beyond death or exchange, another prisoner option was enlisting in the British forces. Captain Thomas Dring, held captive on Jersey, remember, "I never knew a single instance of enlistment among the prisoners..." but William Slade on Groverson reported that "twenty prisoners had joined the King's service."

Summary 1

In the early Republic it is clear that both the Republicans and the Federalist used the suffering and casualties of the Jersey dead to their respective advantages during the election.

Summary 2

While William Slade on Groverson reported that "twenty prisoners had joined the King's service." Captian Thomas Dring stated that he never witnessed a prisoner defect to the British.