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 was badly damaged in battle in June 1745, with her captain's log recording the loss of all sails and: The braces, bowlines shot away several times, also the staysail halyards.

[5] The conditions in which the prisoners onboard Jersey were kept were abysmal; men were crammed below decks with no natural light or fresh air, and the inability of Patriot forces to supply adequate food meant daily rations given to them were meager and insufficient.

[6] Up to 1,100 men were imprisoned on board a ship designed for a 400-man complement of sailors, and historians have estimated that roughly 8,000 prisoners were registered by the British as being onboard Jersey over the duration of the Revolutionary War.

[17] 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 ships sides by a rope round them in the same manner as tho' they were beasts.

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.

[23][24] 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.