Читать книгу The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816 - Thomas James Walker - Страница 5

Excellent organisation was necessary in order to keep these 6,000 foreign soldiers and sailors in safe custody, in a good state of discipline, and at the same time in the best health and greatest comfort compatible with the circumstances.

To the heads of departments mentioned at the close of the second chapter should be added the surgeon appointed by the Government.  He was responsible for the sick and wounded, to a separate department of the Admiralty, and not to the Transport Board.  He lodged in the hospital, until in the early part of the nineteenth century the house was built for him in the hospital quadrangle.

The subordinate officials were comparatively few in number—clerks, interpreters, storekeepers, stewards, and turnkeys.  These last had sleeping accommodation in their lodges; the others had lodging money, and slept in the neighbouring villages, with the exception of the chief clerk and interpreter, the head storekeeper, the hospital officials, and a few others.

A few selections from the appointments, which are recorded in official documents among the thousands of papers which have been searched by Mr. Rhodes for information, will show the status of these employés; they are taken from lists referring to the second period of the war, when the records are more numerous than before the Peace of Amiens.  The officials enumerated were all in the establishment at Norman Cross when the prison was finally emptied.

“Mr. Todd, appointed, 27th June 1803, as French Interpreter at £30 per annum, was, on 1st July 1813, appointed Agent’s first Clerk and Principal Storekeeper at a salary of £118 per annum with no abatement for taxes.”

“J. A. Delapoux, entered, 19th August 1803, as Agent’s Clerk at 30s. 6d. per week, and on March 1st 1806, as Steward, at an additional wage of 3s. 6d. per day, was a Roman Catholic, and probably of French birth, as it is recorded that it was necessary to satisfy his mind that the laws anent Aliens would not affect him.” 31

“Con. Connell, entered 4th September 1804, as Agent’s clerk at 30s. 6d. per week, and on March 13th, 1810, as Steward at an additional wage of 3s. 6d. a day.”

“Geo. Kuse, entered, 22nd June 1813, as Agent’s clerk at £80 per annum.”

“Wm. Belcher, entered as Steward, 28th June 1803, at 3s. 6d. a day.”

“John Bunn, entered as Turnkey, 30th July 1811, at £50 per annum.”

“John Hayward, entered, 12th March 1812, as Turnkey at £50 per annum.”

“James Parker, 20th April 1812, Turnkey at £50.”

“John Hubbard, 15th September 1813, Turnkey at £50.  (Discharged for misconduct, 17th July 1814.)”

“Wm. Wakelin, 28th December 1813, Turnkey at £50.”

“Samuel Thompson, 17th September 1812, Turnkey at £50, and £10 per annum as superintending carpenter.”

“In March, J. Hayward received a rise of 5s. a week for acting as Lamplighter as well as labourer.”

“In February 1804, Payne Pressland was added to the clerks.  He was discharged in the following June.”

“In 1811, J. Draper signed on as agent.”

“James Robinette, 10th June 1813, as Mason and labourer at £50 per annum.”

“Benj. Werth, 22nd October 1813, Messenger at 15s. a week.”

“W. Gardiner, 1st July 1813, superannuation £104 per annum.  (Paid at the Head Office, London, after 31st July 1814.)”

“All these were paid off at the end of July 1814, the Board’s Order for the Abolition of the Establishment at Norman Cross being dated 16th July 1814.”

“There were six labourers put on for a few days, varying from three to twelve days in July 1814, at 3s. 4d. a day.”

“The accounts certified by W. Hanwell, Agent.”

For the safe custody of the prisoners, the two regiments of Militia or Regulars were quartered, one in the Eastern, the other in the Western Barracks; they furnished strong guards at each entrance in the prison wall, and cannon were mounted to command the whole area, while sentries were posted in all directions, and lamps were numerous to prevent the opportunity of escape in the darkness.  The regiments of the garrison were continually changed, in order, among other reasons, that the soldiers, who came in contact with the prisoners when on guard, might not get too intimate with them, and render them assistance in their efforts to escape—or in the illicit trading which will be described later.  For the care of the buildings and the maintenance of all connected with them, there was the barrack master and his assistant; the agent, or superintendent, was responsible to the Transport Board for the care and government of the prisoners; the care of the sick and wounded devolved upon the surgeon, who was assisted by French surgeons appointed from those who had been taken prisoners, the nurses being also men selected from the prisoners, who were paid for their services.

Discipline was maintained in accordance with the following code of regulations laid down for all prisons of war.  Those specially affecting the prisoners were posted up in order that they might be familiar with them.

“By the Commissioners for Conducting His Majesty’s Transport Service, and for the Care and Custody of Prisoners of War.  Rules to be observed by the Prisoners of War in Great Britain, Ireland, &c.:

“1.  The Agent’s Orders are to be strictly obeyed by all the Prisoners; and it is expressly forbidden, that any Prisoners should insult, threaten, illtreat, and much less strike the Turnkeys, or any other Person who may be appointed by the Agent to superintend the Police of the Prison, under Pain of losing Turn of Exchange, of being closely confined, and deprived of half their Ration of Provisions, for such time as the Commissioner may direct.

“2.  All the Prisoners are to answer to their Names when mustered, and to point out to the Agent any Errors they may discover in the Lists, with which he may be furnished, in order to prevent the Confusion which might result from erroneous Names: and such Prisoners as shall refuse to comply with this regulation, shall be put on Half Allowance.

“3.  Should any damage be done to the Buildings by the Prisoners, either through their endeavouring to escape, or otherwise, the expense of repairing the same shall be made good by a Reduction of the Rations of Provisions of such as may have been concerned; and should the Aggressors not be discovered, all the Prisoners confined in the particular Building so damaged, shall contribute by a similar Reduction of their Rations towards the expense of the said Repairs.

“4.  Such Prisoners as shall escape from Prison, and be re-taken, shall be put into the Black Hole, and kept on Half Allowance, until the expenses occasioned by their Escape are made good; and they shall moreover lose their Turn of Exchange, and all Officers of the Navy or Army so offending shall, from that time, be considered and treated in all respects as common men.

“5.  Fighting, quarrelling, or exciting the least Disorder is strictly forbidden, under Pain of a Punishment proportionate to the Offence.

“6.  The Prisons are to be kept clean by the Prisoners in Turns, and every Person who shall refuse to do that Duty in his Turn, after having received Notice of the same, shall be deprived of his Rations, until he shall have complied.

“7.  The Prisoners are from Time to Time to inform the Agent of the Clothing or other Articles which they may stand in need of, and have Money to purchase; and the Agent shall not only permit them to purchase such Articles, but also take care that they are not imposed on in the Price.

“8.  The Prisoners in each Prison are to appoint Three or Five, from among their own number, as a Committee for examining the Quality of the Provisions supplied by the Contractor; for seeing that their full Rations, as to Weight and Measure, are conformable to the Scheme of Victualling at the Foot hereof: and if there should be any cause of Complaint they are to inform the Agent thereof; and should he find the Complaint well-founded, he is immediately to remedy the same.  If the Agent should neglect this part of his Duty, the Prisoners are to give information thereof to the Commissioners, who will not fail to do them justice in every respect.

“9.  All Dealers (excepting such as Trade in Articles not proper to be admitted into the Prison) are to be allowed to remain at the principal Gate of the Prison from six o’clock in the morning until three in the Afternoon, to dispose of the Merchandize to the Prisoners; but any of the Prisoners who shall be detected in attempting to introduce into the Prison Spirituous Liquors, or other improper Articles, or in receiving or delivering any Letter, shall be punished for the Abuse of this Indulgence, in such Manner as the Commissioners may direct.”

The punishments inflicted for breach of the regulations and for other offences, were:

1st.  Reducing the ration of the offender, and should his messmates condone his offence, the rations of the whole mess of twelve men, to which he belonged, were reduced.  Thus it became the interest of the whole mess to prevent any breach of discipline or misconduct by a member.  If a whole mess were insubordinate, and the larger body into which the messes were grouped condoned the offence, the penalty was extended to them.

2nd.  A more severe punishment was depriving a man of his chance of exchange by putting him at the bottom of the list; this was a fearful sentence, for although the actual chance of exchange was small, each man was daily longing and hoping for the arrival of the day when his cartel should come.

3rd.  Imprisonment in the Black Hole, a veritable abode of misery, where solitude was added to the ills of imprisonment, was the penalty for serious offences, such as assaults on the staff, violent assaults on other prisoners, attempts to escape, and more heinous offences.

4th.  Incorrigible prisoners, and those guilty of crimes which were considered as warranting even more severe punishment than imprisonment, in the Black Hole, were removed to the hulks, where, in addition to the discomfort of the crowded ships, they suffered all the other hardships experienced at that date by all criminals imprisoned in a gaol civil or military.

In case of heinous offences and obdurate insubordination, these punishments were combined—a man might not only be put into the Black Hole, but also be put on to reduced rations.

Closing the market at the east gate of the prison, either against the whole body of the prisoners or against those of one only of the four courts, was a punishment inflicted for some general malpractice, or in order to compel their fellow prisoners to disclose the names of some miscreants among them.

No record exists of those who were sentenced to confinement in the Black Hole at Norman Cross, but to show the character of the delinquencies for which this punishment was inflicted, we quote from Basil Thomson’s Story of Dartmoor Prison 32 the following selections from the records of the “Cachot” at that Depot:

1812

“February 24th.—Louis Constant and Olivier de Camp, for striking a sentinel on duty.”

“May 20th.—Jean Delchambre, for throwing a stone at a sentinel and severely cutting his head.”

“June 14th.—F. Rousseau, for striking Mr. Bennet, the store-keeper, when visiting the prisoners.”

“June 14th.—C. Lambourg, for striking and cutting open the head of a sentinel, and causing him dangerous injuries.”

“August 19th.—F. Lebot, for throwing a stone at the postman, as he was returning from Tavistock.”

“August 15th.—A. Creville, for drawing a knife on the hospital turnkey.”

“August 25th.—A.  Hourra, for attempting to stab William Norris, one of the turnkeys, with a knife.”

“September 4th.—Jean Swan, for drawing a knife on the hospital turnkey.”

“September 4th.—F. Champs, for striking R. Arnold, one of the turnkeys, with a stone and cutting his head.”

“September 24th.—S. Schamond, for throwing down a sentinel and attempting to take away his bayonet.”

“September 30th.—A. Normand, for striking Mr. Arnold, the steward.”

“October 16th.—G. Massieu, for attempting to stab one of the turnkeys.”

“October 16th.—Pierre Fabre, for throwing a stone at a sentinel and cutting his face.”

“October 20th.—W. Johnson, for throwing stones at a sentinel.”

“October 23rd.—B.  Marie, for knocking down a turnkey and attempting to seize the arms of a sentinel.”  (See March 23rd, below.)

“November 30th.—N. Moulle and B. Saluberry, for having daggers concealed on their persons.”

The cachot records for March and April, 1813, are even more significant:

“March 13th.—P. Boissard, for striking a turnkey and threatening to murder him on the first opportunity.”

“March 23rd.—F. Bilat, for striking a prisoner named B. Marie, who died shortly afterwards, and taking away his provisions by force.”

“March 28th.—J. Beauclere, for threatening to stab Mr. Moore, because he could not procure employment for him on the Buildings.”

“April 6th.—F. Le Jeune, for being one of the principal provision buyers in the prison, and for repeatedly writing blood-thirsty and threatening letters.”

“April 10th.—M. Girandi and A. Moine, for being guilty of infamous vices.”

For offences against the laws of the land, more grave than those which could be dealt with by the authorities of the various depots, the prisoners, like British subjects, were liable to be tried at the assizes—thus Nicholas Deschamps and Jean Roubillard were tried at Huntingdon Assizes for forging £1 bank-notes (which they had done most skilfully).  This was at that time a capital offence, and they were sentenced to death, but were respited during His Majesty’s pleasure, and remained in Huntingdon Gaol under sentence of death for nine terrible years, until Buonaparte was sent to Elba in 1814; they were then pardoned, and sent back to France with the rest of the liberated prisoners.

On the 9th September 1808, Charles François Marie Bourchier, who had been convicted at Huntingdon Assizes of having, in an attempt to escape, stabbed Alexander Halliday with a knife, was hanged at the prison in the sight of the whole garrison, who were under arms, and of all the prisoners.  This is the only recorded civil execution at Norman Cross; there are several recorded instances of summary military justice, prisoners being shot dead in attempts to escape.  It must be borne in mind that the prisoners were still our foes, who would, if they could escape, be at once in the ranks of the enemy’s army fighting against us; and to prevent their escape, there was, at Norman Cross, little beyond the muskets and bayonets of the Norman Cross sentries—sixty of them posted round and about the prison.

The cleanliness, sanitary and domestic, of the prison, the inhabitants of which averaged probably about 5,500 men (6,270 being the highest number of prisoners recorded in any official document as confined in Norman Cross on a specified day), was provided for by systematic fatigue parties from the prisoners themselves, one out of each mess of twelve being told off in regular rotation for the duty of sweeping, washing, scraping, and disinfecting the prisons; probably under this system the prison and courts were kept as clean as a man-of-war.  Each man on leaving his hammock, doubled it over so that both clews hung on one hook, leaving the floor space clear.

The prisoners lived in the caserns day and night when the weather was too bad for them to live out of doors, but in fair weather they were compelled by the regulations to live outside “in the airing-court” from morning to dusk, except when they were summoned to the casern for their dinner.  The quadrangle is in Foulley’s description of his model always called “pré,” and probably there was more or less grass on the surface.

Within the stockade fence which enclosed each quadrangle, the prisoners, about 1,800 in each square, were left to themselves, no soldiers, no sentries, no free men, except the turnkeys, whose lodges were, with the cooking-house, storehouses, &c., in a special court cut off from the airing-court by the same unclimbable stockade fence.  In each compound the prisoners formed a self-governing community, but all of them subject to the laws which applied to the whole body—viz. the Prison Regulations.

These communities differed from every other community of human beings (except perhaps the inmates of monasteries) in being deprived of any participation in the two essential factors on which the bare existence of every animal race depends—viz. the provision of the actual necessaries of life, food and, in the case of man, clothing, for the preservation of its own generation; and the reproduction of its kind, to insure a future generation.  The necessaries of individual life were provided by the Government.

The feeding of the prisoners and the troops in the barracks was an enormous tax on the resources of the country, greatly as it must have benefited the agriculturists, and purveyors of provisions of all kinds in the neighbourhood.  A paragraph in the Times of 14th August 1814, states that “about £300,000 a year was spent by the Government in Stilton, Yaxley, Peterborough, and neighbourhood in the necessary provision of stores,” and this was not an exaggerated statement, as a calculation based on the average number of the prisoners and garrison, the dietary, and the price of provisions, shows that bread and meat alone would cost more than half the amount named in the Times. 33

The exact ration appears to have varied:

The contract for victualling commenced on 12th April 1797, when the contractor was called upon to supply beef 1 lb., biscuit 1 lb., beer 2 quarts—as the daily ration of each prisoner.

This must have been a temporary ration on the first opening of the prison.  In a later report the following is given as the scheme of victualling for a week:

^[70] When Greens are issued in lieu of Pease, one pound stripped of the outer leaves and fit for the copper shall be issued to each prisoner.

Each prisoner shall receive two ounces of Soap per week.

The ration for the greater period appears to have been beef ¾ lb., bread ½ lb., cabbage 1 lb., or a supply of pease; Wednesdays or Fridays, herrings or cod substituted for the meat, and a pound of potatoes.

This change of the diet on Wednesday and Friday, made on account of the religion of the majority of the prisoners, and also as being more in accordance with their national diet, was recommended by the agent of the prison; but there was considerable delay, and some hardship to the prisoners, before the recommendation was granted.  The fish when it reached the prison must have been several days old, and was no doubt salted.  A new scale later on was fresh beef ½ lb., bread 1 lb., a quart of soup composed of vegetables and pease.  The terms of the contracts with those supplying the food were very stringent.  The conditions in the first contract at Norman Cross have already been given at p. 43 in chap. ii.

When in November 1797 it was agreed by the French and British Governments that each Government should feed its own countrymen in the enemy’s prisons, and the French took over the feeding of the prisoners in Britain, they made only a slight change in the ration to suit it more to French cookery.  The daily allowance per head being, beer 1 qt., beef 8 oz., bread 26 oz., cheese 2 oz. or good salt butter ⅓ oz., pease ½ pt., fresh vegetables 1½ lb.  The French also allowed each prisoner ½ lb. of white soap and ¾ lb. of tobacco in leaf, per month.

The diet of hospital patients was on a very liberal scale: 1 pt. of tea morning and evening, 16 oz. of white bread, 16 oz. of beef or mutton, 1 pt. of broth, 16 oz. of greens or good sound potatoes, and 2 qts. of malt beer, and, in the case of patients requiring it, beef, fish, fowls, veal, lamb, and eggs might be substituted.

The diet was investigated by a commissioner sent round to the various prisons, who reported that, “although the amount of meat would seem scarcely enough to an Englishman, the French, by their skill in cookery, made such an excellent soup or broth out of it as to afford ample support for men living without labour, such as our labouring poor rarely have at any time, but certainly not during the present scarcity.”  The same commissioner in July 1797 recommended that an alteration should be made in the contracts, so as to insure early delivery, “as the lateness prevents the cookery of the meat as the French desire, which is by boiling it down for four or five hours with a strong and excellent broth, after which the meat is good for but little, and but little regarded by the prisoners.” 34

The food was prepared by cooks chosen from the prisoners themselves, and paid by the Government.  To insure the good quality and proper quantity of the goods supplied, and to eliminate the possibility of the storekeepers being bribed by the contractors to pass inferior goods, the prisoners of each block were ordered by Clause 8 of the Prison Rules to appoint delegates to attend when the food and other goods were delivered, and to see that they were up to the standard specified in the contract.

There were in the various prisons occasional complaints, and if they were justified the contractors were punished.  In one instance the defaulting contractor at Plymouth was fined £300 and imprisoned for six months in the County Gaol.  Beer at one time was supplied to the prisoners by the Government, and when this allowance ceased, it could, under certain regulations, be obtained on payment.  This beer was of a very light and cheap quality, as attested by the books of the Oundle Brewery, but half a gallon a day, given in the first ration of which we have found a note, is so large an allowance, even for those bibulous days, that it suggests an error in the memorandum.  Tea and coffee in those days were the luxuries of the well-to-do only, and were not for prisoners or for our own poorer countrymen and women.  There was no tea or coffee.

There can be no doubt that every possible precaution was taken to insure that the food supplied by the Government was good, and sufficient to maintain an average man in good health, and in the market held in the enclosed space at the east gate, to which the prisoners had access, those who had money could buy additional food and luxuries.  But although beyond doubt the allowance of food was sufficient for an average man, there must have been in those twenty years thousands of men with hearty appetites who finished their ration hungry and dissatisfied—and the sequel will show that there were others who actually died of starvation, owing to their own vices.

Each prisoner was allowed a straw palliasse, a bolster, and a blanket or coverlet, the straw being changed as often as was necessary.

The British Government never withdrew its contention that it was the duty of each nation to provide clothing for its subjects in captivity in the country of its enemy, and maintained that this had been the practice of France and England in all previous wars, even in that in which they were engaged up to the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, only ten years before the outbreak in 1793 of the war under discussion; but as an act of humanity, when the French obstinately declined to discharge this duty, the Government clothed a certain number of the naked in a yellow suit, a grey or yellow cap, a yellow jacket, a red waistcoat, yellow trousers, a neckerchief, two shirts, two pairs of stockings, and one pair of shoes.

In M. Foulley’s model the greater number of the prisoners are represented as clad in this uniform, the conspicuous colours of which were selected to facilitate the detection of an escaped prisoner.  In the first year of the occupation of Norman Cross an order was issued to the storekeeper to supply such prisoners as were destitute of clothing with the articles enumerated above.

There is every reason to believe that the provisions for the maintenance of the prisoners were carried out with the utmost care and fidelity in Norman Cross and all other prisons, but the complaints of the prisoners gave rise to such prolonged controversy and serious disagreement between the Governments of France and England, that a review of the discussion finds an appropriate place here.  The complaints were not confined to one side only, but there is ample documentary evidence that the accusations of the French were greatly exaggerated or absolutely without foundation.  Their hatred of the enemy made the captives suspicious, and illness from natural causes was attributed to cruelty and ill-treatment. 35

The British Government, according to Mr. Dundas, Secretary of State, on 6th October 1797, attributed many of the complaints to passion, prejudice, and animosity (quotation by M. Niou in his letter to Mr. Dundas, 15th February 1799), 36 and it is certain that the French Government would not object to the fact that the statements made by the French generals, commissaries, and others, whether the effect was intended or not, undoubtedly increased the anger of their nation against the English, and thus infused greater fighting energy into their troops.  The words used by Buonaparte, in his address to his Army on the eve of Waterloo, to stimulate his troops, have already been quoted.  As to his reference to the hulks, we must bear in mind that, except under the pressure of the earlier period of the war, when the prison accommodation was insufficient, and again later on occasions when the prisoners had accumulated to a larger number than could be accommodated on land, even though Dartmoor, Perth, and other smaller prisons had been built, the hulks were the place of imprisonment for the criminal prisoners of war only, and that a century since there was no place of confinement for criminals in which the conditions could entail anything but misery.

Of the worst miseries endured by the prisoners at Norman Cross and other depots, the real sources were the vices of the unfortunate men themselves, especially gambling and usury, 37 and to the obstinacy of the French Government in their determination to provide no clothing and their neglect to fulfil their promises.  The evidence that this accusation of neglect by the French is well founded, is furnished by M. Charretie, the agent or commissary appointed by the French Directory to look after the prisoners in England, who on the 19th November 1797, in a letter to the Minister of Marine at Paris, after describing the pitiable condition of many of the prisoners, who were half-naked for the want of clothes, proceeds:

“Consolation, Citizen Minister, might be felt by the unfortunate prisoners, if their want and misery had not reached their height, and if assistance could reach them in time to give foundation to their hopes, but, Citizen Minister, after all that I have said to them, after all that I have had the honour of writing to you, concerning their horrible situation and that in which I am myself placed, without resources, at the mercy of a crowd of creditors, scarcely able to find the means of providing for my own subsistence, what would you have me say more when I see you are deceived with respect to the Measures you take in regard to them?

“Five thousand livres have long since been announced to me by your office—you now make mention of sixty thousand livres, but I have no intelligence of the arrival of the first farthing of either of these sums.  If promises remain unexecuted with respect to such sacred and necessary objects in a service which I can no longer continue, when shall I see those realised which relate to the providing of Funds for the clothing of Prisoners,” . . . “and if of about 9,000 confined at Norman Cross near 3,000, sick for want of clothing and an increase of diet, are already on the eve of perishing, what will be the case some time hence?  And upon whom will the responsibility fall for so many thousand victims?  My correspondence will justify me in the eyes of my country.  However expeditious you may be, Citizen Minister, all you can hope for is to save the remainder, whom strength of constitution may have kept longer alive—what then would be the case if the English Government should order the measure of driving them all [this must refer to the officers on parole—T. J. W.] into horrible prisons, and of reducing the allowance to half rations, to be put into execution.” 38

The Republic had taken no notice of the propositions of Britain made on the 6th October 1797, “that the prisoners should be furnished in the countries where they were detained with clothing, subsistence, and medicines at the expense of the Government to which they belonged.”  The British Government threatened, in order to compel a reply, that they must put the prisoners on a reduced allowance on 1st December 1797.

M. Charretie’s letter may have assisted the French Government to sanction the proposal of the British Minister.  What it certainly did, by the statement it contained as to the proportion of sick among, and the general condition of, the Norman Cross prisoners, was to enrage the French against the English.  The British Government at once took steps to prove the statement false.  On the 15th December 1797, Mr. James Perrot, the agent for prisoners of war at Norman Cross, Dr. Higgins, the physician, Mr. James Magennis, surgeon, and Messieurs Chatelin and Savary, the French assistant surgeons, deposed on oath that at no time since the opening of the prison in April had there been more than 5,170 in the prison at one time, that up to that day fifty-nine only had died in the hospital, and that on the 19th November (the date of this letter in which M. Charretie said that out of about 9,000 prisoners near 3,000 were sick) there were only 194 in hospital, in which number were included twenty-four nurses; the doctors in addition certified that, “The prisoners are visited every morning by the chief surgeons or their assistants, and that, whether their disorders are slight or violent, they are admitted into the hospital,” and the French assistant surgeons (themselves prisoners of war) added, “While there, they are treated with humanity and attention, and provided with everything necessary for the re-establishment of their health.” 39

In evidence before a commission held on the 2nd April 1798, M. Charretie explained that he had received the information inserted in his letter to the Minister of Marine from prisoners confined at Norman Cross; that he had intended communicating with the Transport Board, but that soon after writing to the Minister he had reason to alter his opinion; that he had informed the French Government that he thought he had been too hasty, especially as the Transport Board provided him with lists giving him the number of prisoners in each prison, but, as fresh prisoners were arriving, he thought the number might have increased from 5,000 to 9,000.  This is a fair sample of the French complaints, and of how little foundation was found for most of them when they were investigated.  The mortality at Norman Cross was exceptionally high during its first occupation, but the majority of the earliest prisoners were those who had been removed from the prisons, the overcrowded and consequent unhealthy condition of which gave rise to the hurried building of Norman Cross; they were therefore specially liable to disease, and unfit to withstand its ravages.  The arrangement for maintaining the prisoners, from the outbreak of the war in 1793 to November 1797, was that which had been in force in previous wars between the two nations—viz. that each nation should provide the captives detained in its prisons with food sufficient to maintain life and health, while it clothed its own countrymen in the enemy’s prisons.

To put an end to the complaints and the recriminations continually renewed on both sides, relative to the treatment of the prisoners, our Government had in October 1797 proposed the fresh arrangement “that the Prisoners should be furnished, in the Country where they were detained, with clothing, subsistence, and medicines at the expense of the Government to which they belonged.”  The French Government took no notice of this communication, not even acknowledging its receipt, and to enforce its attention to this and other matters connected with the exchange of prisoners (especially of Sir Sidney Smith), the British Government threatened to confine all the officers out on parole, and to reduce the prison ration, which was at that time equal to that of a British soldier, to half—viz. 1 lb. bread, ½ lb. beef, ¼ lb. pease, and ½ lb. cabbage.

This threat, aided possibly by M. Charretie’s letter—the piteous appeal of a servant of the Republic thwarted in the execution of his duties by the neglect of the Directory to fulfil its promises and to discharge its responsibilities—had effect.  The new arrangement was adopted, each nation undertaking to provide food, medicine, and other necessaries for its own countrymen.  While this arrangement lasted, neither combatant could use the weapon, which Britain had threatened to employ, the reduction of the ration of those of the enemy who were captive in its prisons.  M. Gallois, who succeeded M. Charretie as commissary, brought over M. Nettement, to whom the special task of providing the means of subsistence for the prisoners was entrusted, the expense being borne by France.

The contention that the complaints made by the French as to the food, etc., supplied under the old system, were mostly unfounded, is supported by the fact that M. Nettement, except in one instance, employed the same sub-agents, and, in general, the same contractors, who had been serving the British, and that only slight modifications in the dietary were made to adapt it more to French methods of cooking.  The new arrangement lasted only two years; it was terminated abruptly by an Arrêté of the French Consuls, dated 29th November 1799 (le Frimaire l’an 8 de la République une et Indivisible).  A copy of this edict was sent by M. Niou (the Commissary in England at that date) to Mr. Dundas, Secretary of State for War, with a letter in which he stated that among other reasons why the Consuls did not in any manner feel called upon to continue to observe the arrangement, was the fact “that it was not founded on any authentic stipulation; that the Cartel of Exchange, signed nearly ten months afterwards, took not the least notice of it,” etc.

In consequence of this correspondence on the 15th December 1799, the Duke of Portland, acting in the absence of Mr. Secretary Dundas, communicated to the Admiralty the King’s wishes as to future arrangements.  After protesting against the “departure (on the part of the French Government) from the agreement entered into between the two countries, and which tended so materially to mitigate the calamities of war,” he directed, as to the British prisoners in France, that Captain Cotes, the British agent in Paris, should ascertain exactly the daily allowance made to each man by the French Government, and that he should, at the expense of the British Government, make up any deficiency existing between that allowance and the ration supplied by the British Government during the years 1798 and 1799.  At the same time the Minister directed the Transport Commissioners to supply the French prisoners in Britain, from the date when the French agent ceased to supply them, with the same rations of provisions as were granted before the arrangement of December 1797, and he adds:

“As no mention is made of Clothing or other necessaries in Captain Cotes’ letter, I think it right to add that the Commissioners of Transports and for taking care of Prisoners of War are on no account to furnish any to the French Prisoners, as this charge has at all times been supported by the French Government.”

From this time to the termination of the war the arrangement as to the feeding of the prisoners remained the same, but a terrible source of misery to the French prisoners at Norman Cross, and to other French prisoners of war in England, was the firm refusal of the French Government to agree to the clause in Lord Portland’s letter, referring to the clothing of the prisoners.

In another Edict, dated March 1800, signed by Buonaparte as First Consul, Article 1, is “The Ministers of War and of the Marine shall ensure by every possible means, subsistence and clothing to the Russian, Austrian and English Prisoners of War”—“they shall take care that they are treated with all Attention and Indulgence consistent with public safety.” 40