The Appalling Way the British Tried to Recruit Americans Away from Revolt

The British prison ships that dotted the Eastern seaboard during the American Revolution have been gone for more than two centuries, yet the horrors they left in their wake remain seared into the historical record. Starvation, disease, cruelty, and a death toll that may have exceeded 11,000 men and boys — far more than died fighting on land — made these floating hells a grim instrument of war. What is less known is the remarkable story of resistance: the surprising heroism of the ragtag American captives who refused to betray their cause, even when offered freedom in exchange for service to the Crown.

The Genesis of Britain’s Floating Prisons

Barely three months after the American colonists declared independence in July 1776, the British positioned their first prison ship, the Whitby, in a bay off Brooklyn. They would soon add prison ships in Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk, off the coast of Florida, and in Canada. Brooklyn and New York City, which British forces occupied for much of the war, became the most active hub — a small fleet of ships and several thousand prisoners at any given time.

Most surviving accounts come from men held aboard these vessels, particularly the HMS Jersey, a 60-gun Royal Navy ship of the line that became the most notorious of them all. The prisoners were a mix of soldiers, sailors, and rebellious civilians. Many were crew members from privateers — privately owned ships authorized by the Continental Congress, which had little navy of its own, to harass and seize British vessels. To crew the privateers, captains often relied on young men and teenagers from New England and elsewhere in the colonies. They typically had little sailing experience but were eager for more excitement than they would find behind a plow.

Privateers and the Making of Captives

When the British captured a privateer, members of its crew were frequently offered a choice: sign on with a British vessel or take your chances on a prison ship. Most young Americans knew what imprisonment would mean. Colonial newspapers had reported on the horrific conditions and brutal treatment aboard the prison ships from the beginning, historian Edwin G. Burrows writes in his 2008 book, Forgotten Patriots. Even so, the great majority of captured sailors who had any choice took prison over serving the British. Historian Jesse Lemisch estimated that only about 8 percent of the Americans went over to the other side, although some researchers put the number slightly higher.

Recruitment Through Terror: The British Strategy

Once aboard the prison ships, recruiting efforts continued. Some prisoners were offered cash; others were told their families would starve in the streets. The horrors of the prison ships themselves served as a recruiting tool, making any alternative — even betraying one’s country — seem attractive by comparison. Ebenezer Fox, a prisoner on the Jersey, marveled that “Many were actually starved to death in hope of making them enroll themselves in the British Army.”

First-Person Accounts of Survival

The survivors’ testimonies speak for themselves. Fox, captured as a teenage cabin steward aboard a privateer, wrote: “I now found myself in a loathsome prison, among a collection of the most wretched and disgusting looking objects that I ever beheld in human form. Here was a motley crew, covered with rags and filth; visages pallid with disease, emaciated with hunger and anxiety, and retaining hardly a trace of their original appearance.”

Alexander Coffin Jr., an 18-year-old sailor imprisoned on the Jersey, recalled: “I soon found that every spark of humanity had fled the breasts of the British officers who had charge of that floating receptacle of human misery; and that nothing but abuse and insult was to be expected. But to cap the climax of infamy we were fed (if fed it might be called) with provisions not fit for any human being to make use of — putrid beef and pork, and worm-eaten bread.”

Thomas Dring, a captured master’s mate from a privateer, age 25, described the nights: “There were continual noises during the night. The groans of the sick and the dying; the curses poured out by the weary and exhausted upon our inhuman keepers; the restlessness caused by the suffocating heat and the confined and poisoned air; mingled with the wild and incoherent ravings of delirium.”

Disease, Death, and the Shallow Graves of Wallabout Bay

Under such conditions, disease flourished. “Small-pox, dysentery, yellow fever and other contagions ran rampant in the crowded holds,” notes Robert P. Watson in The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn, his 2017 book about the Jersey. Although the British stationed hospital ships nearby, they were poorly supplied and soon overwhelmed. Many of the sick were left aboard the prison ships, where they infected others. By one estimate, at least six prisoners died every day, and sometimes twice that number.

Many of the dead were buried on nearby beaches, in graves so shallow that corpses soon poked up through the sand. Prisoners aboard ship could see the bones of former comrades bleaching in the sun, and skulls and other remnants would turn up for many years thereafter.

George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, wrote multiple letters to his British adversaries urging better treatment for the prisoners. In one, he questioned why they should be held aboard ships at all and “by crouding them together in a few [ships], bring on Disorders which consign them by half Dozens a Day to the grave.” But even his protests were to little avail.

Resistance Aboard the Floating Hell

Although American prisoners greatly outnumbered their guards, there were few reports of attempted rebellions aboard the prison ships, perhaps because most prisoners could not summon the strength. Some attempted escape, even though the British promised to kill them on the spot if caught. Among those who succeeded was Christopher Hawkins, age 17, who, with the help of a compatriot, smashed open a gun port in the side of the Jersey, taking advantage of a thunderstorm that kept guards from hearing the noise. He then swam several miles to shore and arrived on land naked except for his hat.

The Refusal to Betray

Others remained behind, knowing that unless the war ended soon, they had only two options: turn traitor or, in all likelihood, never leave the ship alive. Even so, they resisted. Dring wrote of one unsuccessful recruiting attempt involving a British regiment stationed in Brooklyn: “We were invited to join this Royal Band, and to partake of his Majesty’s pardon and bounty. But the prisoners, in the midst of their unbounded suffering, of their dreadful privation and consuming anguish, spurned the insulting offer. They preferred to linger and to die, rather than desert their country’s cause.”

He added: “During the whole period of my confinement, I never knew a single instance of enlistment from among the prisoners of the Jersey.” Coffin offered a similar account: “Notwithstanding the savage treatment they received, and death staring them in the face, I never knew, while I was on board, but one instance of defection, and that person was hooted at and abused by the prisoners till the boat was out of hearing.”

The July 4, 1782 Celebration and Its Brutal Suppression

In one of the most conspicuous displays of patriotism, some prisoners aboard the Jersey staged a July 4th celebration in 1782, complete with songs and little American flags. By now the war was going in the new nation’s favor, and much of the British Army had surrendered. But the guards were not in a party mood. Using bayonets, they forced the prisoners below decks and locked the hatches. When the singing continued, the guards flung open the hatches and “with lanterns in one hand and cutlasses in the other… cut and wounded all within their reach,” wrote George Taylor, author of an early history of prison ships, Martyrs to the Revolution (1855). “Then, to gratify their hellish feelings, they closed the hatches and left the wounded and dying, in darkness, without the least means of dressing their wounds or stopping the flow of blood.” In the morning, Taylor wrote, 10 “mangled and lifeless bodies” were hauled up onto the deck for disposal.

The dark days of the prison ships were coming to an end. In April 1783, the remaining prisoners in New York were released. The Jersey was abandoned and left to rot away. The men and boys of the prison ships are not as well remembered as most of the war’s other heroes. Many of their names are not known at all. But the few who survived testified to their sacrifice. As Coffin put it in an 1807 letter, “The patriotism in preferring such treatment, and even death in its most frightful shapes, to the serving [of] the British, and fighting against their own country, has seldom been equalled, certainly never excelled.”

For readers interested in the broader context of this era, the war that reshaped North America also involved complex Native diplomatic dimensions, as explored in how Native nations shaped the fight for North America. The conflict’s aftermath, including the Proclamation of 1763, and the foundational question of when Native Americans briefly won back their land, all form part of the same historical fabric in which this story of captivity and resistance unfolded.

Historical Context & Key Cultural Takeaways

• Scale of Mortality: The prison ships of the American Revolution may have claimed more than 11,000 American lives — far exceeding battlefield deaths on land, a statistic that underscores the catastrophic cost of British captivity policy.
• Recruitment as Coercion: British recruiting efforts aboard prison ships relied on terror and deprivation. The offer to enlist was a calculated weapon: starve men into preferring betrayal over death.
• Resistance Rate of Approximately 92%: Despite relentless suffering, roughly 92 percent of captured Americans refused to enlist with the British, according to Jesse Lemisch’s estimate — a remarkable testament to patriotic conviction.
• Voices of the Captives: Survivor narratives — Fox, Coffin, Dring, Hawkins — provide vital primary-source testimony that preserves the human reality of this overlooked chapter.
• Patriotism in Captivity: The July 4, 1782, celebration aboard the Jersey, and its violent suppression, stands as one of the war’s most poignant acts of defiant loyalty.
• End of the Ordeal: April 1783 saw the release of surviving prisoners in New York, and the Jersey was abandoned to rot — but the memory of what happened aboard her endured.

Frequently Asked Questions

What were the British prison ships in the American Revolution?

The British prison ships were decommissioned or repurposed vessels moored in bays along the Eastern seaboard — including Brooklyn, Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk, Florida, and Canada — used to hold American prisoners of war. They were notorious for overcrowding, disease, starvation, and neglect. The HMS Jersey, anchored in Wallabout Bay off Brooklyn, became the most infamous of them all.

How many Americans died on British prison ships?

The death toll is estimated at more than 11,000 men and boys — a figure exceeding the number of Americans who died fighting on land during the war. An estimated six prisoners died every day aboard the Jersey, sometimes more.

Why did the British try to recruit prisoners from their prison ships?

The British sought to replenish the ranks of their army and navy with American captives. They offered incentives such as cash and threatened that prisoners’ families would starve. The horrific conditions of the ships themselves were intended to make enlistment seem preferable to continued imprisonment.

How many prisoners actually enlisted with the British?

Historian Jesse Lemisch estimated that only about 8 percent of captured Americans accepted British offers, though some researchers place the figure slightly higher. The vast majority — roughly 92 percent — refused, preferring imprisonment and likely death to betraying their country.

What happened to the HMS Jersey at the end of the war?

After the release of remaining prisoners in April 1783, the HMS Jersey was abandoned and left to rot in Wallabout Bay. Its remains eventually sank and were largely forgotten until later historical research brought the story to wider attention.

Where can I read first-person accounts of the prison ships?

Primary testimonies appear in the narratives of Ebenezer Fox, Alexander Coffin Jr., Thomas Dring, and Christopher Hawkins. Modern scholarly treatments include Edwin G. Burrows’s Forgotten Patriots (2008) and Robert P. Watson’s The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn (2017).

Cultural Legacy and Modern Preservation

The story of the British prison ships is a sobering reminder that the American Revolution was fought not only on battlefields but in the most degrading conditions imaginable. The men and boys who endured captivity — starving, diseased, and offered freedom in exchange for betrayal — represent a quiet heroism that deserves to stand alongside the more celebrated names of the Revolution. Many of their names are lost to history. Yet the testimonies they left behind, and the commemorative efforts that continue to honor them, ensure that their sacrifice is not wholly forgotten.

The Jersey and her sister ships no longer exist, but the historical record — preserved in letters, memoirs, and scholarly works — remains. Today, memorials and historical markers in Brooklyn and elsewhere commemorate the prison ship martyrs, reminding modern readers that patriotism sometimes meant choosing death over desertion.