Comment by eesmith | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eesmith | Hacker News Reader

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I've never heard that "10% were captured and tortured" number before.

When trying to learn more about it I found a Snopes article at https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-price-they-paid/ discussing a letter going around titled "The Price They Paid" making the claim "Five [of the 56] signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died."

Snopes comments that while five of the signers were indeed captured, four appear to have been treated as normal prisoners of war after being captured in battle ("they were not tortured, nor is there evidence that they were treated more harshly than other wartime prisoners who were not also signatories to the Declaration") and the fifth - singled out for signing - was sent to prison.

Wikipedia comments that the fifth, Richard Stockton, was "intentionally starved and subjected to freezing cold weather. After nearly five weeks of brutal treatment, Stockton was released on parole with his health ruined." quoting a 1823 biography.

But was that torture? Reading the biography, at https://archive.org/details/biographyofsign03sand/page/100/m... , the issue appears to be that rich Mr. Stockton, used to living the high life, has been placed in the commoner jail rather than the comfy jail for rich people:

> On his removal to New York, he was ignominiously consigned to the common prison, and without the least regard for his rank, age, and delicate health, for some time treated with unusual severity.

As Congress described it, "that he hath been ignominiously thrown into a common gaol, and there detained".

And the common jail had horrible conditions. Quoting https://www.americanwars.org/american-prisoners-revolution/p... :

> "The New Jail was made a Provost Prison, and here officers and men of note were confined. At one time they were so crowded into this building, that when they lay down upon the floor to sleep all in the row were obliged to turn over at the same time at the call, 'Turn over! Left! Right!'

> "The sufferings of these brave men were largely due to the criminal indifference of Loring, Sproat, Lennox, and other Commissaries of the prisoners.

> "Many of the captives were hanged in the gloom of night without trial and without a semblance of justice.

It doesn't seem like any of the founders were tortured during the war.

If the other four were treated as regular PoWs, ... well, contemporary standard of care for PoWs was "stick them into prison hulks [0] and see who survives the ordeal". More American rebels died in these prison hulks than in all the battles of the war. The hulks were even worse than regular prisons: damp conditions, less light.

Torture may not be the correct word, but brutal neglect certainly would.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_ship

They were not treated as regular PoWs. They were rich officers. They were treated special.

Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton and Thomas Heyward Jr. were all imprisoned at the PoW camp at Fort St. Mark (aka Castillo de San Marcos), St. Augustine. Not a prison ship.

The Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_San_Marcos links to https://books.google.com/books?id=eCc8BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA126 which describes their captivity and that of others as:

> They lived in the unfinished statehouse and in private houses in town. Since many were paroled, most of them were given considerable freedom of movement. The prisoners' diet was salt fish, occasionally salt beef, vegetables, and potatoes, and one-quarter pint of rum daily. They were permitted to write home for money to purchase items from local vendors. At the statehouse they slept on mattresses on the floor, and stayed the better part of a year.

That is not brutal neglect and certainly not torture.

George Walton, the 5th captured signer, was captured during the Battle of Savannah in 1778. From https://archive.org/details/biographyofsign03sand/page/124/m... :

> Walton received a wound through the thigh, fell from his horse, and was taken prisoner. He was paroled until he recovered from his wound, and then transferred to Sunbury, as a prisoner of war. The high station of colonel Walton as a member of congress, and his signature to the declaration of independence, induced the British government to demand a brigadier general in exchange for him, but the term for which he was elected having expired, he was ultimately exchanged, as a lieutenant colonel, for a captain of the navy, in September, 1779.

Again, not brutal neglect, and not torture.

Thank you for correction, that sounds indeed much better than a prison hulk.

> intentionally starved and subjected to freezing cold weather.

> Was that torture?

Yes, that's quite clearly torture.

You should have read the rest of the comment.

He was assigned to the commoner prison, not tortured. That's why he was cold and hungry.

Please explain why treating a rich man like a common prisoner is torture.

If it was torture, why Congress was so interested in the plight of this one man - enough to send General Washington to investigate the report - and not interested in the plight of everyone else in the prison in the same condition?

Why is it okay to torture common people, but not rich "honorable" people?

>Why is it okay to torture common people

It's not. That was his point.

My question was not about AlecSchueler's personal opinion of torture.

The other 4 Declaration signers who were detained by the British were all rich men of high station - were given good treatment and considerable freedom under parole not given to normal prisoners or POWs. They certainly weren't tortured in any sense of the word.

The description in the biography seems to be that because Richard Stockton was also a rich man of high station, he should have received similar treatment, but he was instead treated like a commoner, and his suffering was all the greater because he was used to the good life.

In the biography were are supposed to sympathize with Stockton because of course rich people deserve to be treated better than plebes. That's the natural order of things. A bizjet traveler should never be forced to fly tourist class.

Congress's interest in the case seems to be much more an apprehension that Stockton was being treated like a common prisoner than a concern that commoners are being horribly mistreated. They wanted Stockton treated like a POW, covered under different laws than a prisoner.

If what was going on can be called torture, Congress don't seem to care. My question is, why not?

The dehumanisation of poorer people continues today so it's not hugely surprising that it was also a thing in the past.

The fact that common prisoners were also being tortured doesn't make it any less torture

"intentionally starved and subjected to freezing cold weather."

"intentionally" implies intention somehow.

You are reading a quote from Wikipedia, a tertiary source.

Wikipedia's source for "intentionally starved" is https://archive.org/details/biographyofsign03sand/page/102/m... :

> He was not only deprived of the comforts, but the necessaries, of life, having been left more than twenty-four hours without food, and afterward afforded a very coarse and limited supply. The inhuman treatment which he received, so repugnant to the principles of civilized warfare, and so intolerable to an individual who had been accustomed to all the comforts and delicacies of life, depressed his spirits and seriously affected his health.

Can you tell me if that was "intentionally starved" or "intentionally forced to eat the same rations as commoners"? Was it really a starvation diet, or was it food that a rich man wasn't used to eating and found unpalatable?

You may well be right. By all accounts the Provost Prison was a horrible place, cruelly run by Provost Marshal Cunningham. At https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7829/7829-h/7829-h.htm#link2... we can read how a pamphleteer describe him as a torturer:

“His hatred of the Americans found vent in torture by searing irons and secret scourges to those who fell under the ban of his displeasure. The prisoners were crowded together so closely that many fell ill from partial asphyxiation, and starved to death for want of the food which he sold to enrich himself.”

But even if you are right, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875273 I point out the other four imprisoned signatories to the Declaration of Independence were not treated like this.

They certainly were not tortured.

If the common prisoners were being rationed less than a meal per day then they were also being tortured.

The source your quoting also calls it "inhuman" and "repugnant to the principles of civilized warfare."

It's got nothing to do with how rich he was, only the fact that he was mistreated as a prisoner.

The "principles of civilized warfare" treated officers different from non-officers. From "The law of nations", 1797 at https://archive.org/details/lawnationsorpri01chitgoog/page/4...

> And what is more, by a custom which equally displays the honour and humanity of the Europeans, an officer, taken prisoner in war, is released on his parole, and enjoys the comfort of passing the time of his captivity in his own country, in the midst of his family ; and the party who have thus released him rest as perfectly sure of him as if they had him confined in irons.

Technically speaking, I guess they don't have to be rich to be an officer, but all the ones I mentioned were rich.

That's a fair point and I know we shouldn't the past by our own standards but, whatever the law was, I still stand by the assertion that all of those men were tortured.

I object to the original claim that "10% of [the signers of the Declaration of Independence] were captured and tortured during the war."

As best as I can tell, Stockton is the only one who might fit that description, and the cited support for Wikipedia"s "five weeks of brutal treatment" doesn't help me understand how that specifically was torture, unless all "brutal treatment" is considered a form of torture.

He lost his wealth, including his library and animals. That's surely an emotional shock that could easily lead to depression. I can understand how someone from privilege, with a lot to lose, may be more affected than a poor person with little to lose. I can also understand how that depression may make it harder to survive wretched circumstances. But I also don't want to give special dispensation to wealthy people just because they are used to a good life.

All of the resources I've found about the event trace back to the biography I've been quoting. The book "His Sacred Honor, Judge Richard Stockton" surely has more, but I can't find a copy online.

I am unable to answer your question about the book. I believe that if "civilized warfare" is a meaningful phrase in a 1770s US context then it's surely influenced by Vattel.

It's the being kept without food for more than 24 hours and the being put into the cold which constitutes the tortue. It's got nothing to do with his background. Any of the other prisoners who were subjected to the same were also tortured.

Was this person tortured? "Details emerge about restrained jail inmate who went 32 hours without food". https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-inmate-handcuff...

Should the people involved be prosecuted for torture?

To be clear, I think it is a clear violation of their 8th amendment right.

Here's a lawsuit where the jail wasn't providing enough food. https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Lawsuit-says-jail-s... . The class action lawsuit is settled, at https://dailygazette.com/2020/07/23/montgomery-county-agrees... . The county denies any wrongdoing.

Even if you think it was torture, I wonder if the prisoners did. The complaint at https://clearinghouse-umich-production.s3.amazonaws.com/medi... says "A more abusive and inhumane environment is difficult to imagine" but does not use the word torture.

Or, from https://interrogatingjustice.org/prisons/historic-winter-sto... :

> More than 1,000 women in one medical prison endured days without heat. Temperatures inside FMC Carswell the facility dropped to 50 degrees. The prison is the only medical facility for women in the entire country, and it houses prisoners with severe health problems. To make matters worse, staff failed to properly secure water supplies, leading to a water shortage inside the jail. Ahead of the storm, correctional officers did not repair damaged heating systems or secure a generator to make sure essential medical equipment had power. Though the prison never officially lost power, prisoners struggled in the extreme temperatures.

Were they being tortured?

Or, "The Big Chill - I had never been locked up before. No one told me that prison would be so cold." https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/11/29/the-big-chill .

Are those prisoners being tortured? Or is this part of the "pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions" the United Nations Convention Against Torture specifically excludes?

I found https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/1998/feb/15/cold-cell-v... saying "The court noted that "cold temperatures need not imminently threaten inmates' health to violate the eighth amendment. Thus, Dixon's claim that his cell was so cold he could not write a letter or do legal work, was sufficient, without more, for eighth amendment purposes."

This sounds like a cold cell can be a violation of the 8th amendment, even without involving torture or extreme health problems.

That's why I don't want to say that this short description of the events of 1700s is enough to conclude it was likely also torture.

The Snopes article is misleading. Conditions for POWs at the time were appalling.

How is the Snopes article misleading? They write "prison conditions were quite deplorable at the time".

Appalling and deplorable, yes. But you said they were tortured.

If appalling conditions = torture, then nearly all of the captured revolutionary troops were tortured, yes?

As well as the captured British POWs held by the Americans?

Which would mean both the US and Britain were systemically and institutionally engaged in wholesale torture of white British subjects (or at least people perceived to be British).

Which would seem to diminish the severity of the term "torture".

Also, Stockton wasn't a POW.

For those downvoting me, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875273 I point out how the other four signers were NOT tortured and NOT held under appalling or deplorable conditions.

The other four - who were POWs - had much better conditions.

For example, three were held in St. Augustine under parole, with food, a quarter pint of rum daily, and considerable freedom of movement about the town.

This is a far cry from being tortured.

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