[Illustration:
_Frontispiece_
PLAIT MERCHANTS TRADING WITH THE FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR AT NORMAN
CROSS
_From a painting by A. C. Cooke in the Town Hall, Luton_
]
PRISONERS OF WAR IN BRITAIN
1756 TO 1815
A RECORD OF THEIR LIVES, THEIR ROMANCE AND THEIR SUFFERINGS
BY
FRANCIS ABELL
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW
NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
1914
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
Two influences have urged me to make a study of the subject of the
prisoners of war in Britain.
First: the hope that I might be able to vindicate our country against
the charge so insistently brought against her that she treated the
prisoners of war in her custody with exceptional inhumanity.
Second: a desire to rescue from oblivion a not unimportant and a most
interesting chapter of our national history.
Whether my researches show the foregoing charge to be proven or not
proven remains for my readers to judge. I can only say that I have
striven to the utmost to prevent the entrance of any national bias into
the presentation of the picture.
As to the second influence. It is difficult to account for the fact that
so interesting a page of our history should have remained unwritten.
Even authors of fiction, who have pressed every department of history
into their service, have, with about half a dozen exceptions, neglected
it as a source of inspiration, whilst historical accounts are limited to
Mr. Basil Thomson’s _Story of Dartmoor Prison_, Dr. T. J. Walker’s
_Norman Cross_, and Mr. W. Sievwright’s _Perth Depôt_, all of which I
have been permitted to make use of, and local handbooks.
Yet the sojourn among us of thousands of war prisoners between the years
1756 and 1815 must have been an important feature of our national
life—especially that of officers on parole in our country towns; despite
which, during my quest in many counties of England, Scotland, and Wales,
I have been surprised to find how rapidly and completely the memory of
this sojourn has faded; how faintly even it lingers in local tradition;
how much haziness there is, even in the minds of educated people, as to
who or what prisoners of war were; and how the process of gathering
information has been one of almost literal excavation and disinterment.
But the task has been a great delight. It has introduced me to all sorts
and conditions of interesting people; it has taken me to all sorts of
odd nooks and corners of the country; and it has drawn my attention to a
literature which is not less valuable because it is merely local. I need
not say that but for the interest and enthusiasm of private individuals
I could never have accomplished the task, and to them I hope I have made
sufficient acknowledgement in the proper places, although it is possible
that, from their very multitude, I may have been guilty of omissions,
for which I can only apologize.
FRANCIS ABELL
LONDON, 1914.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTERNATIONAL RECRIMINATIONS 1
II. THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS 25
III. THE PRISON SYSTEM—THE HULKS 37
IV. LIFE ON THE HULKS 54
V. LIFE ON THE HULKS (_continued_) 75
VI. PRISON-SHIP SUNDRIES 92
VII. TOM SOUVILLE: A FAMOUS PRISON-SHIP ESCAPER 103
VIII. THE PRISON SYSTEM—THE PRISONERS ASHORE. GENERAL 115
IX. THE PRISONS ASHORE:
1. SISSINGHURST CASTLE 125
X. 2. NORMAN CROSS 133
XI. 3. PERTH 155
XII. 4. PORTCHESTER 166
XIII. 5. LIVERPOOL 186
XIV. 6. GREENLAW—VALLEYFIELD 196
XV. 7. STAPLETON, NEAR BRISTOL 207
XVI. 8. FORTON, PORTSMOUTH 215
XVII. 9. MILLBAY, PLYMOUTH 220
XVIII. 10. DARTMOOR 235
XIX. SOME MINOR PRISONS 262
WINCHESTER 262
ROSCROW AND KERGILLIACK 264
SHREWSBURY 266
YARMOUTH 268
EDINBURGH 269
XX. LOUIS VANHILLE: A FAMOUS ESCAPER 278
XXI. THE PRISON SYSTEM—PRISONERS ON PAROLE 284
XXII. PAROLE LIFE 299
XXIII. THE PRISONERS ON PAROLE IN SCOTLAND 316
XXIV. PAROLE PRISONERS IN SCOTLAND (_continued_) 338
XXV. PRISONERS OF WAR IN WALES 357
XXVI. ESCAPE AGENTS AND ESCAPES 365
XXVII. ESCAPES OF PRISONERS ON PAROLE 376
XXVIII. COMPLAINTS OF PRISONERS 395
XXIX. PAROLE LIFE: SUNDRY NOTES 412
XXX. PAROLE LIFE: SUNDRY NOTES (_continued_) 432
XXXI. VARIORUM:
1. SOME DISTINGUISHED PRISONERS OF WAR 442
2. SOME STATISTICS 449
3. EPITAPHS OF PRISONERS 451
INDEX 455
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PLAIT MERCHANTS TRADING WITH THE FRENCH PRISONERS OF
WAR AT NORMAN CROSS _Frontispiece_
_From a painting by A. C. Cooke, Esq., in the Town
Hall, Luton; reproduced here by permission of the
artist._
FRENCH SAILORS ON AN ENGLISH PRISON SHIP 42
_After Bombled._
PRISON SHIPS 45
_From a sketch by the Author._
MEMORIAL TO FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE ROYAL NAVAL
BARRACKS, CHATHAM _To face p._ 46
GARNERAY DRAWING AN ENGLISH SOLDIER 62
_After Louis Garneray._
THE _CROWN_ HULK SEEN FROM THE STERN 67
_After Louis Garneray._
EXTERIOR VIEW OF A HULK 72
_After Louis Garneray._
THE _VENGEANCE_ HULK 74
_After Louis Garneray._
ORLOP DECK OF _BRUNSWICK_ PRISON SHIP, CHATHAM 101
_After Colonel Lebertre._
SISSINGHURST CASTLE _To face p._ 126
_From an old print in the possession of Henry Neve,
Esq., by whose permission it is reproduced._
ARTICLES IN WOOD MADE BY THE PRISONERS AT SISSINGHURST
CASTLE, 1763 _To face p._ 132
_Reproduced by permission of the owner, Henry Neve,
Esq._
MEMORIAL TO FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR WHO DIED AT NORMAN
CROSS. Unveiled July 28, 1914 134
NORMAN CROSS PRISON 137
_Hill’s Plan_, 1797–1803.
COLOURED STRAW WORK-BOX, MADE BY FRENCH PRISONERS OF
WAR _To face p._ 148
_Presented to the Author by Mrs. Ashley Dodd, of
Godinton Park, Ashford, Kent._
THE BLOCK HOUSE, NORMAN CROSS, 1809 _To face p._ 152
_From a sketch by Captain George Lloyd in the United
Service Museum, Whitehall._
PORTCHESTER CASTLE _To face p._ 166
_From the ‘Victoria History of England—South
Hampshire’, by permission of Messrs. Constable &
Co._
PLAN OF PORTCHESTER CASTLE, 1793 168
CLOCK MADE IN PORTCHESTER CASTLE, 1809, BY FRENCH
PRISONERS OF WAR, FROM BONES SAVED FROM THEIR
RATIONS _To face p._ 173
_In the Author’s possession._
BONE MODEL OF H.M.S. _VICTORY_ MADE BY PRISONERS OF
WAR AT PORTSMOUTH _To face p._ 176
_In the possession of Messrs. Doxford & Sons, Pallion,
Sunderland, by whose permission it is reproduced._
THE OLD TOWER PRISON, LIVERPOOL 187
_From an old Print._
MONUMENT AT VALLEYFIELD TO PRISONERS OF WAR 199
STAPLETON PRISON _To face p._ 212
_From the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’_, 1814.
DARTMOOR WAR PRISON, IN 1812 236
_From a sketch signed ‘John Wethems’ in the Public
Record Office. Reproduced by permission of Basil
Thomson, Esq., and Colonel Winn._
DARTMOOR. THE ORIGINAL MAIN ENTRANCE 248
_From a sketch by the Author._
WOODEN WORKING MODEL OF A FRENCH TRIAL SCENE MADE BY
PRISONERS OF WAR AT DARTMOOR _To face p._ 251
_In the possession of Maberley Phillips, Esq., F.S.A.,
by whose permission it is reproduced._
BONE MODEL OF GUILLOTINE MADE BY PRISONERS OF WAR AT
DARTMOOR _To face p._ 256
_Now in the Museum, Plymouth, and reproduced here by
permission of the owner, Charles Luxmoore, Esq.,
from a photograph by Mr. J. R. Browning, Exeter._
DARTMOOR PRISON, ILLUSTRATING THE ‘MASSACRE’ OF 1815 _To face p._ 260
_From Benjamin Waterhouse’s ‘Journal of a Young Man of
Massachusetts’._
JEDBURGH ABBEY, 1812 _To face p._ 347
_From a painting by Ensign Bazin, a French prisoner of
war. Reproduced by permission of J. Veitch, Esq._
BONE MODEL OF H.M.S. _PRINCE OF WALES_ MADE BY
PRISONERS OF WAR _To face p._ 416
_Now in the United Service Museum, Whitehall._
LA TOUR D’AUVERGNE DEFENDING HIS COCKADE AT BODMIN 443
_From Montorgueil’s ‘La Tour d’Auvergne’._
CHAPTER I
INTERNATIONAL RECRIMINATIONS
He who, with the object of dealing fairly and squarely with that
interesting and unaccountably neglected footnote to British history, the
subject of prisoners of war in Britain, has sifted to the best of his
ability all available sources of information both at home and abroad, as
the present writer has done, feels bound to make answer to the
questions:
1. Did we of Britain treat our prisoners of war with the brutality
alleged by foreign writers almost without exception?
2. Did our Government sin in this respect more than did other
Governments in their treatment of the prisoners taken from us?
As an Englishman I much regret to say in reply to the first question,
that, after a very rigorous examination of authorities and weighing of
evidence, and making allowance for the not unnatural exaggeration and
embellishment by men smarting under deprivation of liberty, I find that
foreigners have not unduly emphasized the brutality with which we
treated a large proportion of our prisoners of war, and I am fairly
confident that after a study of the following pages my readers will
agree with me.
Between our treatment of prisoners on parole and in confinement on land,
and foreign treatment of our countrymen similarly situated, the
difference, if any, is very slight, but nothing comparable with the
English prison-ship system existed anywhere else, except at Cadiz after
the battle of Baylen in 1808, and to the end of time this abominable,
useless, and indefensible system will remain a stain upon our national
record.
In reply to the second question, the balance appears to be fairly even
between the behaviour of our own and foreign Governments—at any rate,
between ours and that of France—for Britain and France practically
monopolize the consideration of our subject; the number of prisoners
taken by and from the United States, Spain, Holland, Denmark, and other
countries, is comparatively insignificant.
Each Government accused the other. Each Government defended itself. Each
Government could bring forward sufficient evidence to condemn the other.
Each Government, judging by the numerous official documents which may be
examined, seems really to have aimed at treating its prisoners as
humanely and as liberally as circumstances would allow. Each Government
was badly served by just those sections of its subordinates which were
in the closest and most constant contact with the prisoners. It is
impossible to read the printed and written regulations of the two
Governments with regard to the treatment of war-prisoners without being
impressed by their justness, fairness, and even kindness. The French
rules published in 1792, for instance, are models of humane
consideration; they emphatically provided that foreign prisoners were to
be treated exactly as French soldiers in the matter of sustenance,
lodging, and care when sick.
All this was nullified by the behaviour of subordinates. It is equally
impossible to read the personal narratives of British prisoners in
France and of French prisoners in Britain without being convinced that
the good wills of the two Governments availed little against the
brutality, the avarice, and the dishonesty of the officials charged with
the carrying out of the benevolent instructions.
It may be urged that Governments which really intended to act fairly
would have taken care that they were suitably served. So we think
to-day. But it must always be borne in mind that the period covered in
this book—from 1756 to 1815—cannot be judged by the light of to-day. It
was an age of corruption from the top to the bottom of society, and it
is not to be wondered at that, if Ministers and Members of Parliament,
and officers of every kind—naval, military, and civil—were as
essentially objects of sale and purchase as legs of mutton and suits of
clothes, the lower orders of men in authority, those who were in most
direct touch with the prisoners of war, should not have been immune from
the contagion.
Most exactly, too, must it be remembered by the commentator of to-day
that the age was not only corrupt, but hard and brutal; that beneath the
veneer of formal politeness of manner there was an indifference to human
suffering, and a general rudeness of tastes and inclinations, which make
the gulf separating us from the age of Trafalgar wider than that which
separated the age of Trafalgar from that of the Tudors.
It is hard to realize that less than a century ago certain human
beings—free-born Britons—were treated in a fashion which to-day if it
was applied to animals would raise a storm of protest from John o’
Groats to the Land’s End: that the fathers of some of us who would
warmly resent the aspersion of senility were subject to rules and
restrictions such as we only apply to children and idiots; that at the
date of Waterloo the efforts of Howard and Mrs. Fry had borne but little
fruit in our prisons; and that thirty years were yet to pass ere the
last British slave became a free man. Unfortunates were regarded as
criminals, and treated accordingly, and the man whose only crime was
that he had fought for his country, received much the same consideration
as the idiot gibbering on the straw of Bedlam.
It could not be expected that an age which held forgery and
linen-stealing to be capital offences; which treated freely-enlisted
sailors and soldiers as animals, civil offenders as lunatics, and
lunatics as dangerous criminals; of which the social life is fairly
reflected in the caricatures of Gillray and Rowlandson; which extolled
much conduct which to-day we regard as base and contemptible as actually
deserving of praise and admiration, should be tenderly disposed towards
thousands of foreigners whose enforced detention in the land added
millions to taxation, and caused a constant menace to life and property.
So, clearly bearing in mind the vast differences between our age and
that covered in these pages, let us examine some of the recriminations
between Britain and France, chiefly on the question of the treatment of
prisoners of war, as a preparation for a more minute survey of the life
of these unfortunates among us, and an equitable judgement thereon.
In Britain, prisoners of war were attended to by ‘The Commissioners for
taking care of sick and wounded seamen and for exchanging Prisoners of
War’, colloquially known as ‘The Sick and Hurt’ Office, whose business
was, ‘To see the sick and wounded seamen and prisoners were well cared
for, to keep exact accounts of money issued to the receiver, to disburse
in the most husbandly manner, and in all things to act as their
judgements and the necessities of the service should require.’ John
Evelyn, Samuel Pepys, and Home, the author of _Douglas_, had been
Commissioners. On December 22, 1799, the care of prisoners of war was
transferred to the Transport Office, and so remained until 1817. In 1819
the Victualling Office took over the duty.
Throughout the period of the Seven Years’ War—that is, from 1756 to
1763—there was a constant interchange of letters upon the subject of the
treatment of prisoners of war. The French king had made it a rule to
distribute monthly, from his private purse, money for the benefit of his
subjects who were prisoners in Britain; this was called the Royal
Bounty. It was applied not merely to the relief and comfort of the
prisoners while in confinement, but also to the payment of their
homeward passages when exchanged, and of certain dues levied on them by
the British Government upon entering and leaving the country. The
payment was made on a graduated scale, according to rank, by regularly
appointed French agents in England, whose exact and beautifully kept
accounts may be examined at the Archives Nationales in Paris.
This Royal Bounty, the French Government asserted, had been inspired by
the continual complaints about the bad treatment of their countrymen,
prisoners of war in England. To this it was replied that when the French
prisoners arrived it was determined and arranged that they should have
exactly the same victualling both in quality and quantity as British
seamen, and this was actually increased by half a pound of bread per man
per diem over the original allowance. It was asserted that all the
provisions issued were good, although the bread was not always fresh
baked. This should be remedied. The meat was the same in quality as that
served out to British seamen—indeed it was better, for orders were
issued that the prisoners should have fresh meat every meat day (six in
the week) whereas British seamen had it only twice a week, and sometimes
not so often.
The Commissioners of the Admiralty expressed their difficulty in
believing that the French prisoners were really in need of aid from
France, but said that if such aid was forthcoming it should be justly
distributed by appointed agents.
They appended a _Table d’Avitaillement_ to this effect:
Every day except Saturday every man received one and a half pounds of
bread, three-quarters of a pound of beef, and one quart of beer. On
Saturday instead of the beef he got four ounces of butter or six ounces
of cheese. Four times a week each man was allowed in addition half a
pint of peas.
For money allowance officers of men-of-war received one shilling a day,
officers of privateers and merchant ships sixpence. These officers were
on parole, and in drawing up their report the Admiralty officials remark
that, although they have to regret very frequent breaches of parole,
their standard of allowances remains unchanged.
With regard to the prison accommodation for the rank and file, at
Portchester Castle, Forton Prison (Portsmouth), Millbay Prison
(Plymouth), the men slept on guard-beds, two feet six inches in breadth,
six feet in length, provided with a canvas case filled with straw and a
coverlid. Sick prisoners were treated precisely as were British.
At Exeter, Liverpool, and Sissinghurst—‘a mansion house in Kent lately
fitted up for prisoners’—the men slept in hammocks, each with a flock
bed, a blanket, and a coverlid.
All this reads excellently, but from the numberless complaints made by
prisoners, after due allowance has been made for exaggeration, I very
much doubt if the poor fellows received their full allowance or were
lodged as represented.
This was in 1757. As a counterblast to the French remonstrances, our
Admiralty complained bitterly of the treatment accorded to British
prisoners in French prisons, especially that at Dinan. We quote the
reply of De Moras, the French Administrator, for comparison. The French
scale of provisioning prisoners was as follows:
On Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday each prisoner received one and
a half pounds of bread, one pint of beer at least, one pound of good,
fresh meat, well cooked, consisting of beef, mutton, or veal, ‘without
heads and feet’, soup, salt, and vinegar. On Wednesday, Friday, and
Saturday, and ‘maigre’ days, half a pound of beans or peas well cooked
and seasoned, and two ounces of butter. The same allowance was made in
all prisons, except that in some wine took the place of beer.
The Administrator complained that he had great difficulty in getting
contractors for provisioning prisoners—a fact not without significance
when we note how eagerly the position of contractor for prisoners of war
was competed for in England.
De Moras further stated that prisoners when sick were sent to the
regular Service Hospitals, where they received the same attention as
Frenchmen. Each officer prisoner received a money allowance of thirty
sous—one shilling and threepence—a day, and renewed clothing when
needed.
The following remonstrance, dated 1758, is one of many relating to
alleged British peculation in the matter of the French Royal Bounty.
‘Plusieurs Français enfermés dans le château de Portchester représentent
l’excessive longueur de leur détention et ont fait connoître une
manœuvre qui les prive d’un secours en argent que le Roy leur fait
donner tous les mois; après avoir changé l’or et l’argent qui leur a été
donné pour une monnoie de cuivre nommée _half pens_ on en a arrêté le
cours et on les a mis dans l’impossibilité de jouir du soulagement que
le Roy avoit voulu leur accorder.’
Commenting upon this De Moras adds:
‘Je suis instruit que les châtiments les plus rigoureux sont employés à
l’égard des Français prisonniers pour la faute la plus légère et que
celui qui cherche à s’évader est chargé de fers, mis en cachot, et perd
toute espérance de liberté. Je sais que quelques paroles inconsidérées
lâchées contre votre agent à Portsmouth ont excité sa colère au point de
faire dépouiller 150 Français et de leur faire donner la bastonnade avec
si peu de ménagements que quelques-uns sont morts des suites de cette
barbare punition. Quant à la nourriture elle est assés décriée par tous
les Français qui reviennent d’Angleterre, et il est vray que si on leur
distribue souvent du biscuit aussy mal fabriqué que celuy que
quelques-uns d’eux out raporté, et que j’ay veu, l’usage n’en peut estre
que désagréable et pernicieux. Ils disent aussy que la viande ne vaut
pas mieux, et qu’il en est de même de toutes les espèces de denrées.
‘Je ne l’attribue qu’à l’infidélité et à l’avidité des entrepreneurs.’
In 1758, as a reply to complaints made to the British Government about
the treatment of prisoners at Portchester, a report to the following
effect was made by De Kergan, an officer of the French East India
Company on parole.
1. The chief punishment is the _cachot_, which is wholesomely situated
above ground near the entrance gate. It is untrue that prisoners are
placed there in irons.
2. Prisoners recaptured after escape are put in the _cachot_ upon
half-rations until the expenses of recapture and the reward paid for the
same are made up, but prisoners are never deprived of the French King’s
Bounty or debarred the market.
3. Only three men have lost everything as a result of recapture: one was
a lieutenant who had broken parole from Petersfield; the others were two
sailors who defended themselves against Hambledon people who tried to
capture them, and killed one.
4. It is utterly untrue that 150 prisoners have been flogged.
5. The biscuit sent to M. de Moras as a specimen of the prison food did
not come from Portchester.
6. He reports well upon the food served out to the prisoners.
7. All complaints are listened to.
From the fact that De Kergan was shortly afterwards allowed to go home
to France with his servant, it is difficult to resist the conclusion
that it had been ‘arranged’ by the British authorities that he should
have been selected to make the above report under promise of reward.
De Moras adds that although the number of English prisoners multiplies
continually, it is owing to the slackness of exchange. On the part of
France, he declares that they are all well treated, and asserts that the
balance of prisoners due to France is 800. Complaints from France about
the non-distribution of the King’s Bounty are continued during the year
1758 and the following years, and a proposal is made that agents should
be stationed in each county to attend solely to the proper arrangement
and distribution of all charitable contributions, for the benefit of the
prisoners.
‘C’est le seul moyen,’ says De Moras, ‘qui puisse faire goûter aux
officiers et aux soldats que le sort des armes a privés de la liberté
quelqu’apparence des avantages de la Paix au milieu même des malheurs de
la guerre.’
More complaints from our side brought an answer in which lay the kernel
of the whole matter: ‘L’exactitude des inférieurs demande à estre
souvent réveillée.’
In 1759 the care of the French prisoners in England practically devolved
entirely upon us, as their Government unaccountably withdrew all
support. The natural consequence was that their condition became
pitiable in the extreme—so much so that public subscriptions were opened
on behalf of the poor fellows. A London Committee sat at the _Crown and
Anchor_ in the Strand, and the sum of £7,000 was collected. With this
sum were sent to different prisons 3,131 great coats, 2,034 waistcoats,
3,185 pairs of shoes, 3,054 pairs of breeches, 6,146 shirts, 3,006 caps,
and 3,134 pairs of stockings. Letters of grateful acknowledgement and
thanks were received from most of the dépôts. The following will serve
as a specimen.
‘_Cornwall_ Man-of-War at Chatham, 13.1.1760.
‘Nous les prisonniers de guerre à bord du vaisseau du Roi le “Cornwall”,
dans la rivière de Chatham, reconnoissons d’avoir reçu chacun par les
mains de notre bon commandant Guillaume Lefebre des hardes, consistant
d’un surtout, une chemise, un bonnet, une paire de bas, de souliers et
de coulottes. Nous prions MM. les Anglais qui out eu cette bonté pour
infortunés presque dépourvus auparavant de quoi se garantir de la
sévérité de la saison, et de grandes souffrances par le froid, d’être
persuadés de notre vive reconnoissance qui ne s’oubliera pas.’
The letter of thanks from Sissinghurst contains excuses for some men who
had sold the clothes thus supplied for urgent necessaries, such as
tobacco and the postage of letters, and praying for the remission of
their punishment by being put on half-rations. From Helston, the
collector, W. Sandys, wrote that ‘in spite of vulgar prejudices which
were opposed to this charity, and the violent clamours raised against it
by the author of a letter who threw on its promoters the accumulated
reproach of Traitors, Jacobites and Enemies to their country,’ he sent
£32.
It was in allusion to the above act of public benevolence that Goldsmith
wrote in the twenty-third letter of the _Citizen of the World_: ‘When I
cast my eye over the list of those who contributed on this occasion, I
find the names almost entirely English; scarce one foreigner appears
among the number.... I am particularly struck with one who writes these
words upon the paper enclosing his benefaction: “The mite of an
Englishman, a citizen of the world, to Frenchmen, prisoners of war, and
naked.”’
Even abroad this kindly spirit was appreciated, as appears from the
following extract from a contemporary Brussels gazette:
‘The animosity of the English against the French decreases. They are now
supposed to hate only those French who are in arms. A subscription is
opened in the several towns and countries for clothing the French
prisoners now in England, and the example has been followed in the
capital.’
In 1760 the French Government thus replied to complaints on our side
about the ill-treatment of British prisoners at Brest.
‘The castle at Brest has a casemate 22 feet high, 22 feet broad, and 82
long. It is very dry, having been planked especially and has large
windows. Prisoners are allowed to go out from morning till evening in a
large “meadow” [probably an ironical fancy name for the exercising yard,
similar to the name of “Park” given to the open space on the prison
hulks]. They have the same food as the men on the Royal ships: 8 ounces
of meat—a small measure but equal to the English prison ration—the same
wine as on the Royal ships, which is incomparably superior to the small
beer of England. Every day an examination of the prisoners is made by
the Commissioner of the Prison, an interpreter and a representative of
the prisoners. Bedding straw is changed every fifteen days, exactly as
in the Royal Barracks.’
Here it is clear that the Frenchman did exactly as the Englishman had
done. Having to give a reply to a complaint he copied out the Regulation
and sent it, a formal piece of humbug which perhaps deceived and
satisfied such men in the street as bothered their heads about the fate
of their countrymen, but which left the latter in exactly the same
plight as before.
At any rate, with or without foundation, the general impression in
England at this time, about 1760, was that such Englishmen as were
unfortunate enough to fall into French hands were very badly treated.
Beatson in his _Naval and Military Memoirs_[1] says:
‘The enemy having swarms of small privateers at sea, captured no less
than 330 of the British ships.... It is to be lamented that some of
their privateers exercised horrid barbarities on their prisoners, being
the crews of such ships as had presumed to make resistance, and who were
afterwards obliged to submit: Conduct that would have disgraced the most
infamous pirate; and it would have redounded much to the credit of the
Court of France to have made public examples of those who behaved in
this manner. I am afraid, likewise, that there was but too much reason
for complaint of ill-treatment to the British subjects, even after they
were landed in France and sent to prison. Of this, indeed, several
affidavits were made by the sufferers when they returned to England.
‘On the contrary, the conduct of Great Britain was a striking example of
their kindness and humanity to such unfortunate persons as were made
prisoners of war. The prisons were situated in wholesome places, and
subject to public inspection, and the prisoners had every favour shown
them that prudence would admit of. From the greatness of their number,
it is true, they frequently remained long in confinement before they
could be exchanged in terms of the cartel, by which their clothes were
reduced to a very bad state, many of them, indeed, almost naked, and
suffered much from the inclemency of the weather. No sooner, however,
was their miserable condition in this respect made known, than
subscriptions for their relief were opened at several of the principal
banking-houses in London, by which very great sums were procured, and
immediately applied in purchasing necessaries for those who stood in the
greatest need of them.
‘The bad state of the finances of France did not permit that kingdom to
continue the allowance they formerly granted for the maintenance of
their subjects who might become prisoners of war; but the nation who had
acquired so much glory in overcoming them, had also the generosity to
maintain such of these unfortunate men as were in her power at the
public expense.’
The American prisoners conveyed to England during the War of
Independence, seem to have been regarded quite as unworthy of proper
treatment. On April 2, 1777, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane wrote
from Paris to Lord Stormont, British Ambassador in Paris, on the subject
of the ill-treatment of American prisoners in England, and said that
severe reprisals would be justifiable. On this a writer in the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, October 1777, commented:
‘It must certainly be a matter of some difficulty to dispose of such a
number of prisoners as are daily taken from captured American
privateers; some of whom have from 100 to 300 men on board, few less
than 70 or 80; against whom the Americans can have no adequate number to
exchange.... Were the privateersmen, therefore, to be treated as
prisoners of war, our gaols would be too few to hold them. What then is
to be done? Not indeed to load them with chains, or force them with
stripes, famine, or other cruelties, as the letter charges, to enlist in
Government service; but to allow them the same encouragement with other
subjects to enter on board the King’s ships, and then they would have no
plea to complain of hard usage.’
The letter referred to, sent on by Stormont to Lord North, contained the
chief grievance that ‘stripes had been inflicted on some to make them
commit the deepest of all crimes—the fighting against the liberties of
their country’. The reply to this was the stereotyped one ‘that all
possible was done for the prisoners: that they were permitted to receive
charitable donations, and that complaints were attended to promptly’. A
contemporary number of the _London Packet_ contains a list of
subscriptions for the benefit of the American prisoners amounting to
£4,600. The Committee for the collection and administration of this
money, who sat at the _King’s Arms_ at Cornhill, seem to have occupied
themselves further, for in 1778 they call attention to the fact that one
Ebenezer Smith Platt, a Georgia merchant, had been put in Newgate, and
ironed, and placed in that part of the prison occupied by thieves,
highwaymen, housebreakers, and murderers, without any allowance for food
or clothes, and must have perished but for private benevolence.
The most absurd reports of the brutal treatment of French prisoners in
England were circulated in France. It was gravely reported to the
Directory that English doctors felt the pulses of French prisoner
patients with the ends of their canes; that prisoners were killed _en
masse_ when subsistence became difficult; that large numbers were
punished for the faults of individuals; and that the mortality among
them was appalling. The result was that the Directory sent over M.
Vochez to inquire into matters. The gross calumnies were exposed to him;
he was allowed free access to prisons and prison ships; it was proved to
him that out of an average total of 4,500 prisoners on the hulks at
Portsmouth only six had died during the past quarter, and, expressing
himself as convinced, he returned, promising to report to the French
minister the ‘gross misrepresentations which had been made to him’.
A good specimen of the sort of report which sent M. Vochez over to
England is the address of M. Riou to the Council of Five Hundred of the
5th of Pluviôse of the year 6—that is January 25, 1798.
After a violent tirade against England and her evil sway in the world,
he goes into details. He says that when his Government complained of the
promiscuous herding together of officers and men as prisoners of war,
the English reply was: ‘You are republicans. You want equality,
therefore we treat you here equally.’ Alluding to the harsh treatment of
privateersmen taken prisoners, he declares it is because they do more
harm to England by striking at her commerce than any fleets or armies.
He brings up the usual complaints about bad and insanitary prisons,
insufficient food, and the shameful treatment of officers on parole by
the country people. One hundred Nantes captains and officers had told
him that prisoners were confined in parties of seventy-two in huts
seventeen feet long and ten feet high, some of them being merely cellars
in the hillside; that the water soaked through hammocks, straw, and
bread; that there was no air, that all this was light suffering compared
with the treatment they received daily from agents, officers, soldiers,
and jailors, who on the slightest pretext fired upon the prisoners. ‘Un
jour, à Plymouth même, un prisonnier ajusté par un soldat fut tué. On
envoie chercher le commissaire. Il vient: soulève le cadavre: on lui
demande justice; il répond: “C’est un Français,” et se retire!’
Alluding to the precautionary order which had been recently given in
England that all parole should cease, and that all officers on parole
should be sent to prisons and prison ships, he says: ‘There is now no
parole for officers. All are pell-mell together, of all ranks and of
both sexes. A woman was delivered of a child, she was left forty-eight
hours without attention, and even a glass of water was denied her. Even
the body of a dead dog was fought for by the famished prisoners.’
He then describes in glowing terms the treatment of English prisoners in
France; he suggests a tax for the relief of the French prisoners of war,
a ‘taxe d’humanité,’ being one-third of the ordinary sumptuary tax, and
winds up his attack:
‘Français! Vous avez déposé une foule d’offrandes sur l’autel de la
Patrie! Ce ne sera pas tromper vos intentions que de les employer au
soulagement de l’humanité souffrante. Vous voulez combattre
l’Angleterre: eh bien! Soulagez les victimes; conservez 22,000
Républicains qui un jour tourneront contre leurs oppresseurs leurs bras
dirigés par la Vengeance! N’oubliez pas que le Gouvernement anglais
médite la ruine de la République; que, familiarisé avec tous les crimes,
il en inventera de nouveaux pour essayer de la renverser; mais elle
restera triomphante, et le Gouvernement anglais sera détruit! Attaquez
ce monstre! Il expirera sous vos coups! Quirot, Le Clerc
(Maine-et-Loire), Riou.’
_The Times_ of January 8, 1798, comments severely upon the frequent
tirades of the Directory, ridiculing the attitude of a Government
remarkable above all others for its despotic character and its wholesale
violation of the common rights of man, as a champion of philanthropy, of
morals, and of humanity, and its appeal to all nations to unite against
the only country which protects the victims of Directorial anarchy.
After declaring that the prisoners in England are treated better than
prisoners of war ever were treated before, a fact admitted by all
reasonable Frenchmen, the writer says:
‘And yet the Directory dares to state officially in the face of Europe
that the Cabinet of St. James has resolved to withdraw all means of
subsistence from 22,000 Republican prisoners in England, and has shut
them up in dungeons, as if such a measure, supposing it even to be true,
could have any other object than to force the French Government to
provide for the sustenance of the French prisoners in this country in
the same manner as our Government does with respect to the English
prisoners in France.’
In February 1798 the French Directory announced through Barras, the
president, that it would undertake the subsistence of the French
prisoners in England, meaning by subsistence, provisions, clothing,
medical attendance, and to make good all depredations by prisoners.
_The Times_ of February 27 said:
‘The firm conduct of our Government in refusing any longer to make
advances for the maintenance of French prisoners, has had the good
effect of obliging the French Directory to come forward with the
necessary supplies, and as the French agents have now the full
management of this concern, we shall no longer be subject to their
odious calumnies against the humanity of this country.’
Directly the French Government took over the task of feeding and
clothing the prisoners in England, they reduced the daily rations by one
quarter. This irritated the prisoners extremely, and it was said by them
that they preferred the ‘atrocious cruelty of the despot of London to
the humanity and measures of the Five Directors of Paris’. A
correspondent of _The Times_ of March 16, 1798, signing himself
‘Director’, said that under the previous British victualling régime, a
prisoner on his release showed the sum of four guineas which he had made
by the sale of superfluous provisions, and the same writer declared that
it had come to his knowledge that the new French provision agent had
made overtures to the old British contractor to supply inferior meat.
In 1798 it was resolved in the House of Commons that an inquiry should
be made to establish the truth or the reverse of the French complaints
about the treatment of French prisoners in England. It was stated that
the reports spread about in France were purposely exaggerated in order
to inflame national feeling against Britain. Mr. Huskisson confirmed
this and alluded to the abominable treatment of Sir Sydney Smith.
Colonel Stanley affirmed that the prisoners were generally well treated:
he had lately been in Liverpool where 6,000 were confined, and found the
officers had every indulgence, three billiard tables, and that they
often performed plays.
In May 1798 the Report was drawn up. After hearing evidence and making
every inquiry it was found that the French complaints were gross
exaggerations; the Commissioners observed that ‘our prisoners in France
were treated with a degree of inhumanity and rigour unknown in any
former war, and unprecedented in the annals of civilized nations’, and
reiterated the complaint that all British proposals for the exchange of
prisoners were rejected.
The Report stated that there was good medical attendance given to
prisoners in Britain; that there were constant checks on fraud by
contractors and officials; that the prisoners appointed their own
inspector of rations; that fraudulent contractors were proceeded
against, and punished, giving as a recent example, a Plymouth contractor
who, having failed in his engagements to supply the prisons with good
provisions of full weight, was imprisoned for six months and fined £300.
The Report stated that the daily scale of provisions for prisoners in
health was: one and a half pounds of bread, three-quarters of a pound of
beef, one-third of an ounce of salt, and one quart of beer, except on
Saturdays, when four ounces of butter and six ounces of cheese were
substituted; and on four days of the week half a pint of pease, or in
lieu one pound of cabbage stripped from the stalk.
The prisoners selected their own surgeons if they chose, and the same
diet was given to sick prisoners as to sick British seamen. Each man was
provided with a hammock, a palliasse, a bolster and a blanket, the straw
of bolsters and palliasses being frequently changed.
A letter written in 1793 to the Supplement of the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_, holds good for 1798, as to the belief of the man in the
street that the foregoing liberal and humane regulations were worth more
than the paper they were written on:
‘The Sans Culottes we hold in prison never lived so well in their lives
before: they are allowed every day three-quarters of a pound of good
beef, two pounds of bread with all the finest of the flour in it, the
bran alone being extracted, two quarts of strong well-relished soup, one
pound of cabbage with the heart included, and a quart of good beer. As a
Frenchman can live upon one pound of meat for a week, this allowance is
over-plenteous, and the prisoners sell more than half of it. With the
money so obtained they buy as much strong beer as they can get leave to
have brought them.... Such is the manner in which Englishmen are at this
juncture treating their natural, inveterate, and unalterable enemies.’
On December 22, 1799, the French Government—now the Consulate—repudiated
the arrangement made by the Directory for the subsistence of French
war-prisoners in England, and the British Government was obliged to
undertake the task, the Transport Office now replacing the old ‘Sick and
Hurt’ Office. So the prisoner committees in the dépôts and prisons were
abolished, and all persons who, under the previous arrangement, were
under the French agents and contractors, and as such had been allowed
passports, returned to their original prisoner status.
The Duke of Portland wrote thus to the Admiralty:
‘It is less necessary on this occasion to recall the circumstances which
gave rise to the arrangement under which the two Governments agreed to
provide for the wants of their respective subjects during their
detention, as they have been submitted to Parliament and published to
the world in refutation of the false and unwarrantable assertions
brought forward by the French Government on this subject; but His
Majesty cannot witness the termination of an arrangement founded on the
fairest principles of Justice and Protection due by the Powers of War to
their respective Prisoners, and proved by experience to be the best
calculated to provide for their comfort, without protesting against the
departure (on the part of the French Government) from an agreement
entered into between the two countries, and which tended so materially
to mitigate the Calamities of War. To prevent this effect as much as
possible with respect to the British prisoners now in France, it is His
Majesty’s pleasure that Capt. Cotes should be instructed to ascertain
exactly the rate of daily allowance made to each man by the French
Government, and that he should take care to supply at the expense of
this country any difference that may exist between such allowance and
what was issued by him under the late arrangement.
‘With respect to all the prisoners not on Parole in this country, it is
His Majesty’s command that from the date of the French agent ceasing to
supply them, the Commissioners of Transports and for taking care of
prisoners of war shall furnish them immediately with the same ration of
Provisions as were granted before the late arrangement took place.’
(Not clothing, as this had always been supplied by the French
Government.)
Previous to this repudiatory act of France, the British Government made
a similar proposal to Holland, accompanying it with the following
remarks, which certainly seem to point to a desire to do the best
possible to minimize the misery of the unfortunate men.
‘We trust that your Government will not reject so humane a proposition,
which, if accepted, will, of course, preclude the possibility of
complaints or recriminations between the respective Governments, and
probably meliorate the fate of every individual to which it relates. In
health their mode of living will be more conformable to their former
habits. In sickness they will be less apt to mistrust the skill of their
attendants, or to question the interest they may take in their
preservation. On all occasions they would be relieved from the suspicion
that the Hand which supplies their wants and ministers to their comfort,
is directed by that spirit of Hostility which is too often the
consequence of the Prejudice and Enmity excited by the State of War
between Nations.’
However, the Dutch Government, no doubt acting under orders from
without, replied that it was impossible to comply. So Dutch prisoners
became also the objects of our national charity.
The _Moniteur_ thus defended the Act of Repudiation:
‘The notification of the abandonment by the French Government of the
support of French prisoners in England is in conformity with the common
customs of war, and is an act of wise administration and good policy.
The old Directory is perhaps the first Government which set the example
of a belligerent power supporting its prisoners upon the territories of
its enemies ... Men must have seen in this new arrangement a sort of
insult. The English papers of that time were filled with bitter
complaints, with almost official justification of this conduct,
supported by most authentic proofs. Well-informed men saw with surprise
the French Government abandon itself blindly to these impolitic
suggestions, release the English from the expense and embarrassment of
making burthensome advances, exhaust of its own accord the remains of
its specie in order to send it to England; deprive themselves of the
pecuniary resources of which they stood in such pressing need, in order
to add to the pecuniary resources of its enemies; and, in short, to
support the enormous expenses of administration.
‘The English, while they exclaimed against the injustice of the
accusation, gathered with pleasure the fruits of this error of the
Directory; though our old Monarchical Government left England during the
whole war to support the expenses of the prisoners, and did not
liquidate the balance until the return of Peace, and consequently of
circulation, credit, commerce, and plenty, rendered the payment more
easy. The generally received custom of leaving to the humanity of
belligerent nations the care of protecting and supporting prisoners
marks the progress of civilization.’
The results of repudiation by France of the care of French prisoners in
England were not long in showing themselves.
The agent at Portchester Castle wrote to the Transport Office:
‘August, 1800.
‘GENTLEMEN:
‘I am under the necessity of laying before you the miserable situation
of a great number of Prisoners at this Depôt for want of clothing. Many
of them are entirely naked, and others have to cut up their hammocks to
cover themselves. Their situation is such, that if not provided with
these articles before the cold weather commences they must inevitably
perish.
‘I beg to observe that it is nearly eighteen months since they were
furnished with any article of wearing apparel by the French Government,
and then only a single shirt to each suit which must necessarily have
been worn out long since.
JOHN HOLMWOOD.’
And again, later on:
‘The prisoners are reduced to a state of dreadful meagreness. A great
number of them have the appearance of walking skeletons. One has been
found dead in his hammock, and another fell out from mere debility and
was killed by the fall. The great part of those sent to the hospital die
in a short time, others as soon as they are received there.’
These were written in consequence of letters of complaint from
prisoners. The Agent in France for prisoners of war in England, Niou,
was communicated with, but no reply came. Otto, the Commissioner of the
Republic in England, however, said that as the French Government clothed
British prisoners, _although they were not exactly British prisoners but
allies_, it was our duty to clothe French prisoners. The British
Government denied this, saying that _we_ clothed our allies when
prisoners abroad, and ascribed much of the misery among the French
prisoners to their irrepressible gambling habits. Dundas wrote a long
letter to the French Commissioners about the neglect of their
Government, but added that out of sheer compassion the British
Government would supply the French prisoners with sufficient clothing.
Lord Malmesbury hinted that the prisoners were refused the chance of
redress by the difficulty of gaining access to their Commissary, which
Grenville stated was absolutely untrue, and that the commonest soldier
or sailor had entire freedom of access to his representative.
On October 29, 1800, Otto, the French Commissioner in England, wrote:
‘My letter from Liverpool states that the number of deaths during the
past month has greatly exceeded that of four previous months, even when
the depôt contained twice the number of prisoners. This sudden mortality
which commenced at the close of last month, is the consequence of the
first approach of cold weather, all, without exception, having failed
from debility. The same fate awaits many more of these unfortunate
beings, already half starved from want of proper food, and obliged to
sleep upon a damp pavement or a few handfuls of rotten straw. Hunger and
their own imprudence, deprived them of their clothes, and now the effect
of the cold weather obliges them to part with a share of their scanty
subsistence to procure clothing. In one word, their only hope is a
change in their situation or death.’
In this account Otto admits that the prisoners’ ‘imprudence’ has largely
brought about the state of affairs. Rupert George, Ambrose Serle, and
John Schenck, the Transport Office Commissioners who had been sent to
inquire, report confirming the misery, and re-affirm its chief cause.
About Stapleton Prison they say:
‘Those who are not quite ragged and half naked, are generally very dirty
in their scanty apparel, and make a worse appearance as to health than
they would do had they the power in such a dress to be clean. Profligacy
and gambling add to the distress of many, and it is perhaps impossible
to prevent or restrain this spirit, which can exercise itself in
corners. The Dutch prisoners at Stapleton (1800), being clothed by the
Dutch Government are in much better health than the French.’
The Commissioners sent to Otto an extract of a letter from Forton, near
Gosport. Griffin, the prison surgeon, says that ‘several prisoners have
been received into the Hospital in a state of great debility owing to
their having disposed of their ration of provisions for a week, a
fortnight, and in some instances for a month at a time. We have felt it
our duty to direct that such persons as may be discovered to have been
concerned in purchasing any article of provision, clothing or bedding,
of another prisoner, should be confined in the Black Hole and kept on
short allowance for ten days and also be marked as having forfeited
their turn of exchange.’
Callous, almost brutal, according to our modern standards, as was the
general character of the period covered by this history, it must not be
inferred therefrom that all sympathy was withheld from the unfortunate
men condemned to be prisoners on our shores. We have seen how generously
the British public responded to the call for aid in the cases of the
French prisoners of 1759, and of the Americans of 1778; we shall see in
the progress of this history how very largely the heart of the country
people of Britain went out to the prisoners living on parole amongst
them, and I think my readers may accept a letter which I am about to put
before them as evidence that a considerable section of the British
public was of opinion that the theory and practice of our system with
regard to prisoners of war was not merely wrong, but wicked, and that
very drastic reform was most urgently needed.
Some readers may share the opinion of the French General Pillet, which I
append to the letter, that the whole matter—the writing of the anonymous
letter, and the prosecution and punishment of the newspaper editor who
published it, was a trick of the Government to blind the public eye to
facts, and that the fact that the Government should have been driven to
have recourse to it, pointed to their suspicion that the public had more
than an inkling that it was being hoodwinked.
In the _Statesman_ newspaper of March 19, 1812, appeared the following
article:
‘Our unfortunate prisoners in France have now been in captivity nine
years, and, while the true cause of their detention shall remain unknown
to the country there cannot be any prospect of their restoration to
their families and homes. In some journeys I have lately made I have had
repeated opportunities of discovering the infamous practices which
produce the present evil, and render our exiled countrymen the hopeless
victims of misery....’
(The writer then describes the two classes of prisoners of war in
England.)
‘They are all under the care of the Transport Office who has the
management of the money for their maintenance, which amounts to an
enormous sum (more than three millions per annum) of which a large part
is not converted to the intended purpose, but is of clear benefit to the
Commissioners and their employers. The prisoners on parole receiving
1_s._ 6_d._ per diem produce comparatively little advantage to the
Commissioners, who are benefited principally by the remittances these
prisoners receive from France, keeping their money five or six months,
and employing it in stock-jobbing. They gain still something from these,
however, by what their agents think proper to send them of the property
of those who die or run away. The prisoners in close confinement are
very profitable. These prisoners are allowed by the Government once in
eighteen months a complete suit of clothing, which however, they never
receive. Those, therefore, among them who have any covering have bought
it with the product of their industry, on which the Agents make enormous
profits. Those who have no genius or no money go naked, and there are
many in this deplorable state. Such a picture Humanity revolts at, but
it is a true one, for the produce of the clothing goes entirely into the
pockets of the Commissioners.
‘A certain amount of bread, meat, &c., of good quality ought to be
furnished to each prisoner every day. They receive these victuals, but
they are generally of bad quality, and there is always something wanting
in the quantity—as one half or one third at least, which is of great
amount. Besides, when any person is punished, he receives only one half
of what is called a portion. These measures, whenever taken, produce
about £250 or £300 a day in each depôt according to the number of
prisoners, and of course, are found necessary very often. These are the
regular and common profits. The Commissioners receive besides large sums
for expenses of every description which have never been incurred in the
course of the year, and find means to clear many hundreds of thousands
of pounds to share with their employers.’
The writer goes on to say that
‘the real reason for bringing so many prisoners into the country is not
military, but to enrich themselves [i.e. the Government]. For the same
reason they keep the San Domingo people of 1803, who, by a solemn
capitulation of Aux Cayes were to be returned to France. So with the
capitulation of Cap François, who were sent home in 1811 as
clandestinely as possible. Bonaparte could say ditto to us if any of
ours capitulated in Spain like the Duke of York in Holland.
‘All this is the reason why our people in France are so badly treated,
and it is not to be wondered at.
‘HONESTUS.’
The Transport Office deemed the plain-speaking on the part of an
influential journal so serious that the opinion of the Attorney-General
was asked, and he pronounced it to be ‘a most scandalous libel and ought
to be prosecuted’. So the proprietor was proceeded against, found
guilty, fined £500, imprisoned in Newgate for eighteen months, and had
to find security for future good behaviour, himself in £1,000, and two
sureties in £500 each.
I add the remarks of General Pillet, a prisoner on a Chatham hulk, upon
this matter. They are from his book _L’Angleterre, vue à Londres et dans
ses provinces, pendant un séjour de dix années, dont six comme
prisonnier de guerre_—a book utterly worthless as a record of facts, and
infected throughout with the most violent spirit of Anglophobism, but
not without value for reference concerning many details which could only
come under the notice of a prisoner.
‘Mr. Lovel, editor of the _Statesman_, a paper generally inclined in
favour of the French Government, had published in March 19, 1812, a
letter signed “Honestus”, in which the writer detailed with an exactness
which showed he was thoroughly informed, the different sorts of
robberies committed by the Transport Office and its agents upon the
French prisoners, and summed them up. According to him these robberies
amounted to several millions of francs: the budget of the cost of the
prisoners being about 24,000,000 francs. Mr. Lovel was prosecuted.
“Honestus” preserved his anonymity; the editor was, in consequence,
condemned to two years imprisonment and a heavy fine. His defence was
that the letter had been inserted without his knowledge and that he had
had no idea who was the author. I have reason to believe, without being
absolutely sure, that the writer was one Adams, an employé who had been
dismissed from the Transport Office, a rascal all the better up in the
details which he gave in that he had acted as interpreter of all the
prisoners’ correspondence, the cause of his resentment being that he had
been replaced by Sugden, even a greater rascal than he. I wrote to Mr.
Brougham, Lovel’s Solicitor, and sent him a regular sworn statement that
the prisoners did not receive one quarter the clothing nominally served
to them, and for which probably the Government paid; that, estimating an
outfit to be worth £1, this single item alone meant the robbery every
eighteen months of about £1,800,000. My letter, as I expected, produced
no effect; there was no desire to be enlightened on the affair, and the
judicial proceedings were necessary to clear the Transport Office in the
eyes of the French Government. Hence the reason for the severe
punishment of Lovel, whose fine, I have been assured, was partly paid by
the Transport Office, by a secret agreement.’
The General, after some remarks about the very different way in which
such an affair would have been conducted in France, appends a note
quoting the case of General Virion, who, on being accused of cruelty and
rapacity towards the English prisoners in Verdun, blew his brains out
rather than face the disgrace of a trial.
Pillet wrote to Lovel, the editor, thus:
‘On board the prison ship _Brunswick_,
Chatham, May 19, 1813.
‘SIR:
‘Since I have become acquainted with the business of the letter of
“Honestus” I have been filled with indignation against the coward who,
having seemed to wish to expose the horrible truth about the character
and amount of the robberies practised upon prisoners of war, persists in
maintaining his incognito when you have asked him to come forward in
your justification.... Unhappily, we are Frenchmen, and it seems to be
regarded in this country as treason to ask justice for us, and that
because it is not possible to exterminate France altogether, the noblest
act of patriotism seems to consist in assassinating French prisoners
individually, by adding to the torments of a frightful imprisonment
privations of all sorts, and thefts of clothing of which hardly a
quarter of the proper quantity is distributed....
‘We have asked for impartial inquiries to be made by people not in the
pay of the Admiralty; we have declared that we could reveal acts
horrible enough to make hairs stand on end, and that we could bring
unimpeachable witnesses to support our testimony. These demands, even
when forwarded by irreproachable persons, have been received in silence.
Is it possible that there are not in England more determined men to put
a stop to ill-doing from a sense of duty and irrespective of rank or
nation? Is it possible that not a voice shall ever be raised on our
behalf?
‘Your condemnation makes me fear it is so.
‘If only one good man, powerful, and being resolved to remove shame from
his country, and to wash out the blot upon her name caused by the
knowledge throughout Europe of what we suffer, could descend a moment
among us, and acquaint himself with the details of our miseries with the
object of relieving them, what good he would do humanity, and what a
claim he would establish to our gratitude!’
Pillet adds in a note:
‘Lord Cochrane in 1813 wished to examine the prison ships at Portsmouth.
Although he was a member of Parliament, and a captain in the navy,
permission was refused him, because the object of his visit was to
ascertain the truth about the ill-treatment of the prisoners. Lord
Cochrane is anything but an estimable man, but he is one of those who,
in the bitterness of their hatred of the party in power, sometimes do
good. He complained in Parliament, and the only reply he got was that as
the hulks were under the administration of the Transport Office, it
could admit or refuse whomsoever it chose to inspect them.’