THE PRISON SHIP.
A thirty-six gun frigate, the _Alceste_, crowded with French
prisoners, had for some reason, I know not what, come into the old
harbour of Rye, which was then becoming rapidly choked up with sand,
and unfortunately she became, as the sailors term it, _neaped_, which
means being left so far aground by the neap-tide, which there rises
to the height of seventeen feet, that there was no chance of her
floating even at high-water, until the spring-tide flowed again.
In this state she lay imbedded in the sand, and careened over to
port, much to the discomfort of those on board.
Several brawls having ensued among the prisoners, as the marine guard
had been withdrawn (to partake in a third, and, as it proved in the
sequel, most disastrous expedition to the coast of France), the
officer in command applied for a guard of dismounted dragoons, the
Greys being the nearest troops at hand; and thus with twenty men of
the light troop I found myself doing marine duty on board H.M. ship
_Alceste_.
In her commander I recognised one of the junior officers of Lord
Howe's ship, a young lieutenant, for the frigate had all her guns out
save two, and was simply degraded to the rank of a floating prison.
He welcomed me all the more warmly that he was a countryman of mine,
and one who spoke his native dialect in all its Doric breadth and
native purity. He was afterwards that Captain I---- who commanded
the _Belliqueux_, 64, at Camperdown, and who in the beginning of the
action, on failing to make out Lord Duncan's signals amid the smoke,
after various attempts flung the signal book on deck, and shouted
from the poop--
"Up wi' yer helm, damme, and gang doon into the middle o't!" Then
running in between two of the enemy's ships he shortened sail, and
engaged his guns on both sides at once.
Now lest the reader may never have seen a hulk crowded with French
prisoners, I shall sketch briefly a little of what we saw on board of
the _Alceste_.
A few seamen and petty officers composed her crew, and she had on
board, and under their care, four hundred desperadoes, as she was the
condemned ship of the larger hulks which lay moored in Portsmouth
harbour and elsewhere, being the receptacle for those prisoners whose
misconduct, desperate character, or violent disposition rendered them
obnoxious to rule and to the rest of their comrades.
Each of these prisoners when brought on board was provided with a
suit of yellow uniform, this colour being deemed sufficiently
remarkable to ensure notice and recapture in case of escape being
effected. Each had also a hammock and bedding. To cook their
rations certain men were elected by themselves, and the sole duty
imposed upon the general body was the simple task of keeping
themselves clean, the space they occupied between decks neat and
tidy, and of bringing up their hammocks daily to air in the nettings.
Soldiers or seamen with loaded muskets were posted at various parts
of the vessel, and in the poop cabins were two twenty-four pounders
kept loaded; and these, in case of revolt or disturbance could be run
through ports in the bulkhead, to sweep the decks with grape and
canister shot.
On the main deck was a railed space named the _pound_, wherein the
prisoners were allowed to walk and amuse themselves during the day;
and there they were at liberty to expose for sale those boxes of
dominoes, toy ships, buttons, bodkins, and other trifles, which, with
the native ingenuity of their country, French prisoners were wont to
manufacture from their ration bones and pieces of wood given to them
by the ship carpenter.
But from the character of our prisoners--the refuse of the other
prison hulks--I found few such traces of industry on board the
_Alceste_.
In consequence of the absence of the marines, the discomfort of the
ship while lying careened to port, and her vicinity to the land,
Lieutenant I---- soon found the prisoners in a furious state of
discontent, and beginning to encourage hopes of breaking loose by
cutting a hole in the ship's side with a knife.
The ringleaders he had punished according to his printed regulations;
but ten days in the black hole, among rats and bilge-water, extra
deck-cleaning duty, and short allowance of hard biscuits and stale
"swipes," utterly failed to repress their turbulence and
insubordination.
There were sailors, soldiers, privateersmen, merchant-seamen,
civilians, and even officers who had broken their parole, crammed
together in wretchedness and filth, some of them being almost in a
state of nudity, with nothing more than a piece of old sail tied
round them, notwithstanding all the excellent regulations of the
Transport Board, and the exertions of the officers and slender crew
of the _Alceste_, for most of these Frenchmen were now so desperate
and degraded that they cared less for death than life. Thus, never
shall I forget the impression made upon me when I looked along the
far vista of the lower deck, when the flakes of yellow sunlight were
streaming across it through the barred gratings of the triced-up
ports, and saw the tattered figures, the scrubby beards, the scarred
forms--scarred less in battle than by prison brawls (for some who
were obnoxious to the rest were horribly mutilated)--the shock heads
of black, uncombed hair, the unwashed visages and bloodshot eyes of
those prisoners--the dull apathy of some, the ferocious hate
exhibited by others; and when I heard the yells, screams, obscenity
and mockery with which they greeted us as new comers, and chiefly
when my guard, as a hint, deliberately loaded their carbines with
ball-cartridge before them.
"From what do all these miseries and disorders arise?" I asked, as we
retired and entered the great cabin, the windows of which faced to
the coast of Kent.
"You may well inquire," replied Lieutenant I----; "they have their
origin in an inordinate passion for gambling."
"Gambling?"
"Yes; you would be astonished," continued the lieutenant, whose
dialect I render in English, "if you knew how these incorrigible
wretches persevere in a vice that ends in the death of many and the
misery of all. Their clothes, their beds, their rations, the hair of
their heads, and their very teeth, they convert into objects on which
to hazard the turn of a card or a cast of the dice. For months in
advance many of them have lost all their food to more fortunate or
more knavish gamblers; and so hard of heart have some of these
become, that they will see their victims perish of hunger before
their eyes without bestowing a morsel to alleviate their sufferings.
Many have died on the lower deck, naked, of cold in the winter, and
others of sheer starvation. In the stomachs of two, who were thus
found dead in the cable-tier yesterday, our surgeon found only a
little water. I have had small-arm men posted over the mess-tables
with loaded pistols, to force each man to eat his own rations,
whether gambled away or not; and all night long we have to watch
every portion of the ship, as they are for ever cutting holes in her
sheathing with knives they have secreted--holes for the purpose of
escaping or of scuttling her with all on board. So, sir," he added,
with an oath, "you are likely to find yourself in pleasant company."
It would seem that on finding the ship stranded in Rye Harbour, and
so near the shore, a privateersman, notorious as a ringleader in
every disorder, cut, with the help of a knife--the edge of which he
had serrated as a saw--one of those holes to which my friend
referred, on the starboard side and just amidships.
This had been discovered in time, and in accordance with standing
orders every prisoner in that part of the ship had been put upon
half-rations to defray the expense of the repair, which the carpenter
stated at twenty-five pounds sterling.
A dreadful uproar ensued when this information was communicated to
the Frenchmen. Wet swabs, holystones, belaying-pins, pieces of wood
torn from the hatch way-combings and deck-gratings, mops, brooms, and
everything available as a weapon, were in immediate requisition; and
the prisoners broke into open revolt on the third day after we were
on board.
The drum beat to arms, the crew drove below all who were in the
pound, battened down the hatches, and promptly ran the two
twenty-four pounders through the bulkhead aft to sweep the deck
forward if necessary; but so much was the vessel careened over in the
sand that the guns failed to work well. Thus my twenty dismounted
Greys, with their carbines loaded, were formed in line across the
deck, ready for whatever might ensue; Lieutenant I---- having of
course command of the whole.
As the disorder was at its height, and several missiles had been
flung at us, I gave the orders--
"Ready--present!" but on finding that the din was instantly hushed, I
added, "_Advance_ arms!"
Stepping forward a few paces, and taking advantage of the lull, I was
proceeding to address the prisoners in the most conciliatory terms,
when the privateersman--a tall, strong, and swarthy fellow from
Martinique--with silver rings in his ears, and naked to the waist,
rushed upon me with a knife, in eluding which I stumbled and fell.
On seeing this, believing me to be stabbed, Tom Kirkton cried--
"Let us shoot them down--fire!"
Then a volley of carbines was poured in. This shot the privateersman
and another dead, and severely wounded ten more. A terrible scene
then took place at the hatchways, as the fugitives scrambled,
tumbled, and rolled over each other--falling through in heaps in
their haste to escape to the lower hold, cockpit, cable-tier, or
anywhere; all save those who lay on the deck, and one, a many in
tattered uniform, who stood calmly with arms folded, and with his
back to the mainmast, eyeing us with steady disdain, as if waiting
for the next platoon.
With my sword drawn, I stepped forward to question this rash man, and
then judge my emotion on recognising in him the--Chevalier de
Boisguiller!