HMS Jersey ( 1736 ) HMS " Jersey " was a 60 - gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy , built to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment of dimensions at Plymouth Dockyard , and launched on 14 June 1736 . She is perhaps most noted for her service as a prison ship during the American Revolutionary War . Early career . " Jersey " was built during a time of peace in Britain . Length : 44 m ; 1 , 068 bm tons ; Crew : 400 ; Armament : 24x24 pdr , 26x9 pdr , 10x6 pdr ; built in 1736 . Her first battle was in Admiral Edward Vernon ' s defeated attack on the Spanish port of Cartagena , Colombia , around the beginning of the War of Jenkins ' Ear in October 1739 . " Jersey " next saw action in the Seven Years ' War . " Jersey " also took part in the Battle of Lagos under Admiral Edward Boscawen on 18 — 19 August 1759 . American Revolutionary War . In March 1771 , " Jersey " ' s masts were taken down and she was then made a hospital ship in Wallabout Bay , New York , which would later become the Brooklyn Navy Yard . When the American Revolution began , the British used her as a prison ship for captured Continental Army soldiers , making her infamous due to the harsh conditions in which the prisoners were kept . Thousands of men were crammed below decks where there was no natural light or fresh air and few provisions for the sick and hungry . James Forten was one of those imprisoned aboard her during this period . Political tensions only made the prisoners ' days worse , with brutal mistreatment by the British guards becoming fairly common . As many as eight corpses a day were buried from the " Jersey " alone before the British surrendered at Yorktown on 19 October 1781 . When the British evacuated New York at the end of 1783 , " Jersey " was abandoned in the harbour , having had approximatively 8 , 000 prisoners on board . One of the most gruesome chapters in the story of America ' s struggle for independence from Britain occurred in the waters near New York Harbor , near the current location of the Brooklyn Navy Yard . From 1776 to 1783 , the British forces occupying New York City used abandoned or decommissioned warships anchored just offshore to hold those soldiers , sailors and private citizens they had captured in battle or arrested on land or at sea ( many for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the British Crown ) . Some 11 , 000 prisoners died aboard the prison ships over the course of the war , many from disease or malnutrition . Many of these were inmates of the notorious HMS Jersey , which earned the nickname " Hell " for its inhumane conditions and the obscenely high death rate of its prisoners . Christopher Vail , of Southold , who was aboard " Jersey " in 1781 , later wrote : ' When a man died he was carried up on the forecastle and laid there until the next morning at 8 o ' clock when they were all lowered down the ship sides by a rope round them in the same manner as tho ' they were beasts . There was 8 died of a day while I was there . They were carried on shore in heaps and hove out the boat on the wharf , then taken across a hand barrow , carried to the edge of the bank , where a hole was dug 1 or 2 feet deep and all hove in together . ' In 1778 , Robert Sheffield of Stonington , Connecticut , escaped from one of the prison ships , and told his story in the Connecticut Gazette , printed July 10 , 1778 . He was one of 350 prisoners held in a compartment below the decks . " The heat was so intense that ( the hot sun shining all day on deck ) they were all naked , which also served the well to get rid of vermin , but the sick were eaten up alive . Their sickly countenances , and ghastly looks were truly horrible ; some swearing and blaspheming ; others crying , praying , and wringing their hands ; and stalking about like ghosts ; others delirious , raving and storming , - - all panting for breath ; some dead , and corrupting . The air was so foul that at times a lamp could not be kept burning , by reason of which the bodies were not missed until they had been dead ten days . " The Department of Defense currently lists 4 , 435 US battle deaths during the Revolutionary War . Another 20 , 000 died in captivity , from disease , or for other reasons . Estimates of deaths aboard the New York prison ships vary around 8 , 000 . Prisoner exchange s were hardly possible for two reasons : the British often captured far more prisoners than the Americans did , and George Washington did not favour exchanging veteran British soldiers for ragtag American troops , as it would only put his army at a greater disadvantage . Accounts of imprisonment on HMS " Jersey " are American Heritage Magazine { August 1970 / Volume 21 / # 5 } and on prison ships American Heritage Magazine ( April / May 1980 / Volume 31 / # 3 ) Rediscovery of the Jersey . During October 1902 as the keel of the ship the U . S . S . Connecticut was under construction at the Brooklyn Navy Yard , the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the H . M . S . Jersey had been found . While pile driving a new dock , the wood from the ship was encountered , precisely where the burned hulk was reported to lay after the British abandoned the ship and she was set on fire . Memorial . The remains of those that died aboard the prison ships were reinterred in Fort Greene Park after the 1808 burial vault near the Brooklyn Navy Yard had collapsed . In 1908 , one hundred years after the burial ceremony , the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument was dedicated .