THE PRISON SYSTEM
THE PRISONERS ASHORE. GENERAL
During the progress of the Seven Years’ War, from 1756 to 1763, it
became absolutely necessary, from the large annual increase in the
number of prisoners of war brought to England, that some systematic
accommodation for prisoners on land should be provided. Some idea of the
increase may be formed when we find that the number of prisoners of war
in England at the end of 1756 was 7,261, and that in 1763, the last year
of the war, it was 40,000.
The poor wretches for whom there was no room in the already overcrowded
hulks were herded together wherever space could be found or made for
them.
They were in borough jails—veritable hells on earth even when filled
with native debtors and felons: they were in common prisons such as the
Savoy and Wellclose Square in London: they were in hired and adapted
strong houses such as the Wool House at Southampton, and the old pottery
works in Liverpool, or in adapted country houses such as Sissinghurst in
Kent, or in adapted farms like Roscrow and Kergilliack in Cornwall; or
in barracks as at Winchester, Tynemouth and Edinburgh. Portchester
Castle was but an adaptation, so was Forton, near Gosport, and the only
place of confinement built as a prison, and kept exclusively for
prisoners of war, was for a long time the Millbay prison at Plymouth.
In 1760 public attention was drawn to the ‘dangerous spirit’ among the
French prisoners in England. Escapes were frequent, were carried out by
large bodies of men, and in many cases were characterized by open acts
of defiance and violence. Inquiries were made about places which could
be prepared to accommodate, between them, from fifteen to twenty
thousand prisoners of war. No place was too sacred for the
prison-hunters. A report upon the suitability of Kenilworth Castle was
drawn up by a Dr. Palmer, who concluded, ‘If the buildings are
completed, some thousands of prisoners will be so accommodated as I
flatter myself will reflect Honour on the British Nation.’
General Simon, we shall see later, was confined in Dumbarton Castle. The
Royal Palace at Linlithgow only escaped conversion into a war prison by
the exertions of Viscount Dundas, Lord of the Admiralty—a fact to which
Sir Walter Scott thus alludes in _Waverley_:
‘They halted at Linlithgow, distinguished by its ancient palace, which,
Sixty Years since, was entire and habitable, and whose venerable ruins,
_not quite Sixty Years since_, very narrowly escaped the unworthy fate
of being converted into a barrack for French prisoners. May repose and
blessings attend the ashes of the patriotic statesman, who, amongst his
last services to Scotland, interposed to prevent this profanation!’
So the business of searching for suitable places and of adaptation of
unsuitable went on, the prisoners being of course the chief sufferers,
which in that hard, merciless age was not a matter of much concern, and
it was not until 1782 that a move in the right direction seemed to be
made by the abandonment of the old evil place of confinement at Knowle,
near Bristol (visited and commented on by Wesley in 1759 and 1760, and
by Howard in 1779), and the transfer of the prisoners to the ‘Fish
Ponds’ prison, better known later as Stapleton.
In 1779 Howard says, in his General Report upon the prisons on land,
‘The French Government made an allowance of 3_d._ per diem to Captains,
Mates, sailing masters and surgeons; 2_d._ per diem to boatswains,
carpenters, and petty officers generally, and 1_d._ per diem to all
below these ratings (which is almost exactly the same as the allowances
made by the British Government to its prisoners abroad). There is,
besides, a supply from the same Court of clothes, linen, and shoes to
those who are destitute of these articles; a noble and exemplary
provision much to the honour of those who at present conduct public
affairs in France.’
Howard found the American prisoners, except at Pembroke, clean and well
clothed, thanks to liberal supplies from their own country as well as
from England. He noted the care and assiduity of the ‘Sick and Hurt’
Office in London, and decided that England and France treated foreign
prisoners very much alike on the whole.
In 1794 Charles Townshend wrote to the Earl of Ailesbury: ‘The French
prisoners have their quarters in Hillsea Barracks (Portsmouth), find our
biscuit and beef much better than their own, and are astonished at the
good treatment they meet with. Most of them are very young, and were
driven on board by the bayonet.’
I quote this as I am only too glad when I come across any record or
evidence which can serve to brighten the dark dreary record of these
chapters in our national history.
In 1795 there were 13,666 prisoners of war in Britain, of whom 1,357
were officers on parole; of the remainder the largest number, 4,769,
were at Portchester Castle.
In 1796–7 the great dépôt at Norman Cross near Peterborough, to contain
7,000 prisoners, was built and occupied. In 1798, further inquiries were
made by the Government for prison accommodation, as the inflow of
prisoners was unceasing and ever increasing, the total for this year
being 35,000. The advertised specifications give us an idea of the space
then considered sufficient for prisoners. Besides accommodation for a
garrison calculated at the proportion of one guard for every twenty
prisoners, cells were required measuring eight feet by seven, and eleven
feet high, for four or five prisoners, or rooms twenty-four feet by
twenty-two to be divided into nine cells, and replies were received from
Coldbath Fields, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Lancaster
Castle, Shrewsbury, and Dorchester.
In 1799 Stapleton Prison, near Bristol, was to be enlarged so as to be
ready in June 1800, for twice its then complement of prisoners.
In 1803 a very general impression was prevalent in high places that an
invasion of England was imminent from Ireland with which the prisoners
of war all over the country, but especially the Western counties, were
to be associated, and so, at the request of Sir Rupert George of the
Transport Office, a detailed report was drawn up by Mr. Yorke of the
best means to be taken to guard against this. To this was appended a
memorandum of the capacity and condition of various inland prisons, such
as Manchester, Stafford, Shrewsbury, Dorchester, Gloucester, Coldbath
Fields in London, and Liverpool.
In 1806 the great prison at Dartmoor, built to hold 6,000 prisoners, and
thus relieve the dangerous congestion at Plymouth, was founded, but the
first prisoners did not enter it until 1809. In 1811 a large dépôt was
formed at Valleyfield near Penicuik on the Esk, about nine miles south
of Edinburgh, which was gradually enlarged until at the Peace of 1814 it
contained 10,000 prisoners.
So by this time, 1814, there were nine large prisons at Dartmoor, Norman
Cross, Millbay, Stapleton, Valleyfield, Forton, Portchester, Chatham
(where the present St. Mary’s Barracks were first used as a war-prison),
and Perth, holding about 45,000 prisoners; there were about 2,000
officers on parole; the hulks at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Chatham—about
fifty ships—would hold nearly 35,000 prisoners, and the grand total
would be well in excess of the largest number of war prisoners in
Britain in one year, that is, 72,000 in 1814.
In 1812 the following notification was sent to the Admiralty, who
evidently treated it seriously, as a copy of it was sent to the agents
of all the war prisons in the country:
‘Extra Secret Intelligence.
‘The large fleet here (Boulogne) remain perfectly inactive, but the
Flotilla are only waiting for orders. I was yesterday told by one of the
Captains that 6,000 men would soon be embarked, that the place of
landing was to be as near as possible to Stilton Prison (Norman Cross)
and that every man was to carry two complete sets of arms, &c., in order
to equip the prisoners they may release.’
Three men, named La Ferre, Denisham, and De Mussy, were to land as
American gentlemen, and to take charge quietly and unobtrusively. The
head-quarters were to be near Liverpool, Hull, and between Portsmouth
and Plymouth, whence these emissaries were to gain access to all the
prisons, and prepare the minds of the inmates for the Great Event.
Nothing came of this, but the correspondence of the Transport Office
reveals the fact that by one means or another a more or less regular
correspondence was kept up between France and the prisons, and that
there were concerned in it some very well known officers on parole, and
even some Englishmen.
The captaincy of a war prison was no sinecure, and if history shows that
one or two of the officers occupying the position were ill-fitted for
it, assuredly they had no reason to complain of a lack of rules,
regulations, and instructions from head-quarters, and they were called
to order in no measured terms.
The care of the prisoners themselves, desperate, restless, cunning
rascals as many of them were, seems to have bothered the agent much less
than the care of those who were in any way associated with the working
of the prison—the big and little officials, the officers and soldiers of
the garrison, the contractors, the tradesmen, the workmen, the servants,
the innkeepers, farmers, post-office officials, even the stage coachmen
and guards, not to mention the neighbouring gentry, parsons and old
ladies who, of course, knew very much better how to run a war-prison
than did Captain Pressland, or Captain Cotgrave, or Captain Draper, or
any other selected man.
Another fact which contributed to the irksomeness of the post was that
although a naval captain was always the head of a war prison, and his
turnkeys were generally of the same service, and he was the responsible
head of the establishment, the guardianship of the prisoners was
absolutely in the hands of the military authorities, who were therefore
responsible for the safe-keeping of the prisoners. Any difference
therefore between the naval captain and the military colonel as to the
arrangement and disposal of the guards—and such differences were
frequent—was sure to betray itself in the condition of the prison.
It may be easily understood that although it was the naval captain in
charge of a prison who was held responsible for every escape of a
prisoner, he would be pretty sure to put the _onus_ of it on to the
military commander, who, in turn, would be ready to attribute the mishap
to anything but deficiency in the arrangement of sentries or to any
slackness on the part of his men.
Take again the position of the war prisoner agent, as he was called,
with regard to the numberless appeals to his humanity with which he was
assailed. The period of the Great Wars was not characterized by
hyper-sensitiveness on the score of human suffering and want, although I
thoroughly believe that the men selected for the position of war
prisoner agents were generally as kindly disposed and as sympathetic, as
refined and well-bred Englishmen as could be in an age not remarkable
for gentleness. It must be remembered that they had ever to be on their
guard against ruse and stratagem.
A forcible illustration is afforded by the much vexed question of the
religious condition of the prisoners. In 1798 the Bishop of Léon asked
that French priests should be allowed to minister to the prisoners at
Portchester and Stapleton, and, although it was notorious that by far
the greater number of Frenchmen were not merely indifferent to religion,
but avowed preachers of atheism, the permission was given, and the Abbés
De La Marc and Pasquier were told off for duty. Later on, however, it
would seem that the privilege thus accorded had been grossly abused, and
the permission cancelled, for the Transport Office writes:
‘The T. O. regrets that it is not in their power to permit the _émigré_
priests to visit War Prisons. We feel it our duty, however, to say that
in the present difficult times when pretended Friends are not always
distinguishable from real Foes, we feel it our Duty to be on our guard
respecting Intercourse with all Prisoners of war under our charge, and
though we have a sincere desire to promote the interests of the
Christian Religion under any Denomination, yet where it has been, and is
uniformly, if not universally, insulted by the Republicans of your
Nation who constitute the bulk of our captives, we must be cautious of
every species of Introduction to men so generally unprincipled, and who
are at best the Dupes of an ignorant and insidious Philosophy. We allow
much when we grant permission to your Priests upon the express desire of
the Parties, and we appeal to you whether it be not an indulgence which
would not be conceded to Protestant Divines under similar circumstances
in any Roman Catholic Country, and particularly in France itself under
its ancient Government.’
The bishop also applies to have a priest at Deal. The Transport Office
refuses, saying that Deal is not a dépôt for prisoners, but only a
receiving place, and there are no turnkeys and clerks, such ‘as the
admission of an Ecclesiastic might render necessary’.
In 1801, the same Bishop of Léon had the assurance to request the
release of a French priest taken under arms. To this the Transport
Office replied:
‘The Board is rather surprised that you should apply to them on behalf
of such a person, as they conceive it to be against the spirit of all
Religion that men in Holy Orders should be found in Military Array, and
they are more convinced that they should not comply with such a request,
as no assurance can be given or be relied on that so unprincipled a man
may not put off his Function for his own purposes a second time and
repeat his enormity.’
In 1808, the Bishop of Moulins was chaplain to the prisoners at Norman
Cross, and, according to the Rev. Arthur Brown, author of a little book
about this prison, devoted his life to the spiritual regeneration of the
poor fellows in captivity, although Dr. Walker, of Peterborough,
estimates the bishop somewhat differently.
At any rate, his boy attendant, a prisoner, was found guilty of breaking
one of the prison rules by selling straw hats clandestinely made by the
prisoners, and was ordered back into confinement. The bishop, who did
not live in the prison, but was staying at the _Bell_, in Stilton,
applied for another prisoner attendant, but was refused.
Again, in 1814, the British and Foreign Bible Society asked that the
Transport Office agents should be allowed to distribute New Testaments
among the prisoners at Stapleton and Norman Cross. The Office replied:
‘We cannot impress such a duty on our agents, as they consider it an
impossibility to prevent the prisoners from selling them, as all the
Vigilance exercised by the officers of the Department is insufficient to
prevent the prisoners from making away with the most necessary articles
of clothing and bedding.’
That the Transport Office were justified in their refusal is confirmed
by an incident at the final embarkation of the French prisoners from the
Perth dépôt in July of the same year, 1814. A considerable number of
French Testaments were sent from Edinburgh to be distributed among the
prisoners leaving for France. The distribution was duly made, but by the
time the prisoners had reached the waterside, almost every man had sold
his Testament for a trifling sum.
It cannot be doubted, I think, that the hardships endured by the
prisoners in the war prisons were very much exaggerated, and also that
to a very large extent the prisoners brought them upon themselves.
Especially was this the case in the matter of insufficient food and
clothing. Gambling was the besetting sin of the prisons, and to get the
wherewithal to gamble the prisoners sold clothing, bedding, and not only
their rations for the day, but for days to come. At Dartmoor the evil
occasioned by the existence of the sale of rations by prisoners to
‘brokers’, who resold them at a profit, was so great that Captain
Cotgrave, the Governor, in February 1813, sent a number of the ‘brokers’
to the _cachot_. To their remonstrance he replied, in writing, much as a
sailor man he would have spoken:
‘To the Prisoners in the Cachot for purchasing Provisions. The Orders to
put you on short allowance (2/3rds) from the Commissioners of His
Majesty’s Transport Board is for purchasing the provisions of your
fellow prisoners, by which means numbers have died from want of food,
and the hospital is filled with sick not likely to recover. The number
of deaths occasioned by this inhuman practise occasions considerable
expense to the Government, not only in coffins, but the hospital is
filled with these poor, unhappy wretches so far reduced from want of
food that they linger a considerable time in the hospital at the
Government’s expense, and then fall a victim to the cruelty of those who
have purchased their provisions, to the disgrace of Christians and
whatever nation they belong to.
‘The testimony of the surgeons and your countrymen prove the fact.’
The appeal was useless, and he issued a proclamation a month later,
threatening to stop the markets if the practice was persisted in. This
was equally fruitless. Charitable people pitied the poor half-naked
prisoners in winter, and supplied them abundantly with clothing; but
when the same men were pointed out to them a few days later as naked as
before, and it was represented to them that by their well-meant
benevolence they were actually encouraging that which it was most
desirable to check, they refused to believe it. Hence it became
necessary to punish severely. The most efficacious form of punishment
was to put an offender’s name at the bottom of the list for being
exchanged against British prisoners to be sent from France or whatever
country we happened to be at war with. But even this had no deterrent
effect upon some, and the frenzy for gain was so remarkable that in all
the prisons there was a regular market for the purchase and sale of
places on the Exchange List, until the Government stopped the practice.
The most common form of punishment was putting offenders on short
allowance. For making away with hammock, bed, or blanket, the prisoner
was put on short allowance for ten days; for making away with any two of
these articles he was docked for fourteen days; for cutting or damaging
bedding or clothes, he had half rations for five days and had to make
the damage good.
Acts of violence brought confinement in the _cachot_ or Black Hole. A
prisoner who wounded a turnkey was to be kept handcuffed, with his hands
behind him, for not less than twelve hours, and for not more than
twenty-four!
For murder and forgery the prisoners came under the civil law; death was
the penalty for both, but until 1810 no prisoner-forgers, although
convicted, had been punished with death in England, owing to a doubt in
the minds of judges whether prisoners of war were answerable to
municipal tribunals for this sort of offence, which is not against the
law of nations.
Prisoners who were not mentally or physically gifted enough to earn
money by the exercise of their talents or employment in handicraft, had
other opportunities of doing so. For working about the prisons as
carpenters, gardeners, washermen, they were paid threepence a day. As
helpers in the infirmaries—one to every ten patients—they received
sixpence a day. Officers recaptured after breaking their parole or sent
to prison for serious offences were glad, if they had means, to pay
prisoners threepence a day to act as their servants, and do their dirty
work generally. At the same rate sweepers were engaged at the ratio of
one to every hundred men; cooks, in the proportion of one for every 400
men, received 4½_d._ a day, and barbers earned 3_d._ a day. At Dartmoor
some five hundred prisoners were employed in these and other ways, each
man wearing on his cap a tin plate with the nature of his calling
thereon inscribed. A necessarily rough estimate showed that nearly half
of the inmates of the war prisons made honest money in one way or
another; the remainder were gamblers and nothing else. Still, a very
large number of the wage-earners were gamblers also. Of these various
professions and trades much will be said in the accounts of the prison
life which follow, and when comparisons are instituted between the
versatility, the deftness, the ingenuity, the artistic feeling, and the
industry of the French prisoners in Britain, and the helpless indolence
of the British prisoners abroad, testimony is unconsciously given in
favour of that national system by which men of all social grades, of all
professions, and of all trades, are compelled to serve in the defence of
their country, as contrasted with that which, until late years, deemed
only the scum of the population as properly liable to military service.