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This address was reproduced in Hugh Gaines's New York Gazette, June 17, 1782. Whether the John Cooper who signed his name to this address is the Mr. Cooper mentioned by Dring as the orator of the Jersey we do not know, but it is not improbable. Nine Coopers are included in the list, given in the appendix to this volume, of prisoners on the Jersey, but no John Cooper is among them.
"The next disgusting object which met my sight was a man suffering from small-pox, and in a few minutes I found myself surrounded by many others laboring under the same disease in every stage of its progress." Dring was obliged to inoculate himself, as that was thought to be the safest way of taking the disease. He borrowed some virus from a sufferer, and scarified the skin of his hand with a pin.
Forsyth and Dring, left the ship with the gig and the other whaleboat on the evening of the day we returned from the Flinders. The prospect that lay before us raised our spirits to the highest; and the weather, clear, cool, and bracing, could not have been more favourable, the temperature being 60 degrees.
His brother, who was a physician, nursed him faithfully, but he died on the 9th of August, 1786. Letters written on board the Jersey have a melancholy interest to the student of history, and this one, written by William Drowne to a Mrs. Johnston, of New York, is taken from the appendix to the "Recollections of Captain Dring." Jersey Prison Ship Sep. 25 1781
Fox describes the food and drink, the prison regulations, deaths, and burials, just as they were described by Captain Dring, who wrote the fullest account of the Jersey, and from whose memoirs we shall quote further on.
But on the Jersey, Dring declares that neither light nor fire was ever allowed. Often their provisions were not dealt out in time to be cooked that day, and then they had to fast or eat them raw. The cooking was done in the "Great Copper" under the forecastle. This was a boiler enclosed in brick-work about eight feet square. It was large enough to contain two or three hogsheads of water.
He then bound up his hand. Next morning he found that it had festered. He took the disease lightly, and soon recovered, while a very large proportion of those who contracted smallpox in the natural manner died of it. All the prisoners from the Belisarius were obliged to fast for twenty-four hours. Dring had some ship biscuit with him, in his bag. These he distributed to his companions.
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