CHAPTER V

LIFE ON THE HULKS—(_continued_)

I next give the remarks of Colonel Lebertre, who, having broken his parole by escaping from Alresford, was captured, and put on the _Canada_ hulk at Chatham. This was in 1811. He complains bitterly that officers in the hulks were placed on a level with common prisoners, and even with negroes, and says that even the _Brunswick_, which was considered a better hulk than the others, swarmed with vermin, and that although cleanliness was strongly enjoined by the authorities, no allowance for soap was made, no leave given to bathe even in summer, and that fresh clothing was very rarely issued.

But most strongly does he condemn the conduct of the idle curious who would come off from the shore to see the prisoners on the hulks.

‘Les femmes même ont montré une indifférence vraiment choquante. On en a vu rester des heures entières les yeux fixés sur le Parc où se tiennent les prisonniers, sans que e spectacle de misère qui affecterait si vivement une Française ait fait couler une seule larme; le rire insultant était, au contraire, sur leurs lèvres. Les prisonniers n’ont connu qu’un seul exemple d’une femme qui s’évanouît à la vue du Parc.’

In the House of Commons on December 26, 1812, during a debate upon the condition of the foreign prisoners of war in England, Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty, declared that he had inspected the hulks at Portsmouth, and had found the prisoners thereon ‘comfortable and happy and well provided with amusement’, and Sir George Warrender said much the same about Chatham.

Colonel Lebertre remarks on this:

‘Men sensual and hardened by pleasures! You who in full Parliament outrage your victims and declare that the prisoners are happy! Would you know the full horror of their condition, come without giving notice beforehand; dare to descend before daylight into the tombs in which you bury living creatures who are human beings like yourselves; try to breathe for one minute the sepulchral vapour which these unfortunates breathe for many years, and which sometimes suffocates them; see them tossing in their hammocks, assailed by thousands of insects, and wooing in vain the sleep which could soften for one moment their sufferings!’

He describes, as did the Baron de Bonnefoux, the Raffalés who sold all their clothes, and went naked in obedience to one of the laws of their _camaraderie_, who slept huddled together for warmth in ranks which changed position by words of command. He says that some of the prisoners were so utterly miserable that they accepted pay from the authorities to act as spies upon their fellows. He describes the rude courts of justice held, and instances how one man who stole five louis received thirty blows with a rope’s end; he refers to the terrible vice prevalent upon the prison ships, and remarks that ‘life on them is the touchstone of a man’s character’.

When he arrived on the _Canada_ there was no vacant sleeping place, but for 120 francs he bought a spot in the middle of the battery, not near a port, ‘just big enough to hold his dead body’. Still, he admits that the officers treated him with as much consideration as their orders would allow.

On August 11, 1812, in response to many urgent remonstrances from influential prisoners against the custom of herding officers and men together, all the officers on the hulks at Chatham were transferred to the lower or thirty-six gun battery of the _Brunswick_, in number 460. Here they had to submit to the same tyranny as on the other ships, except that they were allowed to have wine if they could afford to pay six francs a bottle for it, which few of them could do. Later, General Pillet and other ‘broke paroles’, on account of the insulting letters they wrote on the subject of being allowed rum or other spirits, were confined to the regulation small beer. The Transport Office wrote: ‘Indeed, when the former unprincipled conduct of these officers is considered, with their present combination to break through the rules, obviously tending to insurrection and a consequent renewal of bloodshed, we think it proper that they should immediately be removed to separate prison ships.’

We now come to the most rabid of the Frenchmen, General Pillet. Pillet was severely wounded and taken prisoner at Vimiero in 1808, and—in violation, he says, of the second article of the Convention of Cintra, which provided that no French should be considered prisoners of war, but should be taken out of Portugal with arms, &c., by British ships—was brought to England, with many other officers. He was at once allowed to be on parole at Alresford, but, not considering himself bound by any parole terms, attempted to escape with Paolucci, Captain of the _Friedland_ captured in 1808 by the _Standard_ and _Active_, but was recaptured and sent to the dépôt at Norman Cross. Here his conduct was so reprehensible that he was sent to the _Brunswick_ at Chatham. From the _Brunswick_ he tried to escape in a vegetable boat, but this attempt failed, and it is to the subsequent rigour of his treatment that must be attributed his vitriolic hatred of Britain.

General Pillet is of opinion that the particular branch of the Navy told off for duty on the prison ships was composed of the most miserable scum of English society; of men who have either been accomplices in or guilty of great crimes, and who had been given by the magistrates the alternative of being marines or of being hanged!

He speaks of the Chatham hulks as abominably situated near foul marshes—which is undeniably true. The quarters of the prisoners were in no place high enough for a man to stand upright; fourteen little ports, unglazed but barred, of seventeen inches square, on each side of the deck, gave all the light and air obtainable. When they were shut they were fast shut, so that during the winter months the prisoners breathed foul air for sixteen hours a day. Hence they went naked, and so, when the cold air was admitted the results were fatal. The overcrowding of the hulks, says Pillet, was part of the great Government design of killing the prisoners, and asserts that even a London newspaper, quoting the opinion of a medical board in London, said that the strongest of men, after six years’ life on the hulks, must be physically wrecked for life.

The hammock space allowed was six feet in length, but swinging reduced them to four and a half. Newcomers were often obliged to sleep on the bare deck, as there was no other vacant space, and there was no distinction of ranks. However, officers were generally able to buy spaces, upon which practice Pillet remarks:

‘C’est une misérable spéculation pour un pauvre prisonnier affamé; il consent à vendre sa place afin de se procurer un peu plus de vivre pendant quelques jours, et afin de ne pas mourir de faim il accélère la destruction de sa santé, et se réduit dans cette horrible situation à coucher sur un plancher ruisselant d’eau, l’évaporisation des transpirations forcées qui a lieu dans ce séjour d’angoisses et de la mort.’

He declares that the air is so foul when the decks are shut up that the candles will not burn, and he has heard even the guards call for help when they have opened the hatches and the air has escaped. The food he describes as execrable, so that the two boats which had the monopoly of coming alongside to sell butter, tea, coffee, sugar, potatoes, candles, and tobacco at a price one-third above that on land, did a roaring trade. The general reply to complaints was that any food was good enough for French dogs.

If they were badly fed, says Pillet, they were worse clothed. Nominally they received every eighteen months a coat, waistcoat, breeches, two pairs of stockings, two shirts, a pair of shoes, and a cap. He declares he can prove that the prisoners did not receive this complete rig-out once in four years, and that if a prisoner had any rags of his own, or received any money, he got no clothes! What clothes they did get were so badly made that they generally had to be re-made. He says that at Portsmouth, where the hulk agent Woodriff was at any rate conscientious enough to issue the clothes on the due dates, his secretary would buy back the shirts at one shilling each, and so, as Government paid three shillings each for them, and there were at Portsmouth, Forton, and Portchester some twelve thousand prisoners on the average, his ‘pickings’ must have been considerable!

In a note he gives the instance of the reply of Commander Mansell, who commanded the prison-ship police at Chatham in 1813, when the fact that not one quarter of the clothing due to the prisoners had been delivered to them, was proved clearly: ‘I am afraid it is too true, but I have nothing to do with it. I cannot help it.’

From the _Carnet d’Étapes du Sergt.-Maj. Beaudouin, 31^e demi-brigade de ligne_, I take the following account of life on the hulks.

‘On October 31st, 1809, Beaudouin left Valleyfield where he had been confined since June 10th, 1804, and came on board the _Bristol_ hulk at Chatham. At this time the hulks were the _Glory_, three decker, _Bristol_, _Crown Prince_, _Buckingham_, _Sampson_ (_mauvais sujets_), _Rochester_, _Southwick_, _Irresistible_, _Bahama_ (Danes), and _Trusty_, hospital ship, holding in all 6,550 prisoners.’

Beaudouin says:

‘The difference between the land prisons and the hulks is very marked. There is no space for exercise, prisoners are crowded together, no visitors come to see them, and we are like forsaken people. There is no work but the _corvées_ to get our water, and to scrape in winter and wash in summer our sleeping place. In a word, only to see them is to be horrified. The anchorage at Chatham is bounded by low and ill-cultured shores; the town is two miles away—a royal dockyard where there is much ship-building. At the side of it is a fine, new, well-armed fort, and adjoining it a little town named Rochester, where there are two windmills, and two more in Chatham. By the London road, three miles off, there are four windmills. The people of this country are not so pleasant and kind as in Scotland, in fact I believe “the sex” is not so beautiful.’

Very soon the _Bristol_ was condemned and its prisoners transferred to the _Fyen_, and at the same time the _Rochester_ and _Southwick_ were replaced by the _Canada_ and _Nassau_. On the _Fyen_ were 850 prisoners, but during 1810 and 1811 a great many Chatham prisoners were sent to Norman Cross and Scotland.

Beaudouin comments thus bitterly:

‘It is unfortunate for me that my circle of acquaintances is so limited, and that I cannot therefore make sufficiently known the crimes of a nation which aims at the supremacy in Europe. It poses as an example among nations, but there are no brigands or savages as well versed in wickedness as it is. Day by day they practise their cruelties upon us, unhappy prisoners. That is where they are cowardly fighters! against defenceless men! Half the time they give us provisions which the very dogs refuse. Half the time the bread is not baked, and is only good to bang against a wall; the meat looks as if it had been dragged in the mud for miles. Twice a week we get putrid salt food, that is to say, herrings on Wednesday, cod-fish on Saturday. We have several times refused to eat it, and as a result got nothing in its place, and at the same time are told that anything is good enough for a Frenchman. Therein lies the motive of their barbarity.’

A short description of the terrible _Sampson_ affair is given elsewhere (p. 93), but as Beaudouin was evidently close by at the time, his more detailed account is perhaps worth quoting.

‘On the _Sampson_ the prisoners refused to eat the food. The English allowed them to exist two days without food. The prisoners resolved to force the English to supply them with eatable provisions. Rather than die of hunger they all went on deck and requested the captain either to give them food or to summon the Commandant of the anchorage. The brute replied that he would not summon the Commandant, and that they should have no other provisions than those which had been served out to them two days previously. The prisoners refused to touch them. The “brigand” then said: “As you refuse to have this food, I command you to return below immediately or I will fire upon you.” The prisoners could not believe that he really meant what he said and refused to go below.

‘Hardly had they made this declaration, when the Captain gave the word to the guard to fire, which was at once done, the crowd being fired upon. The poor wretches, seeing that they were being fired upon without any means of defence, crowded hastily down, leaving behind only the killed and wounded—fifteen killed and some twenty wounded! Then the Captain hoisted the mutiny signal which brought reinforcements from the other ships, and all were as jubilant as if a great victory had been won.

‘I do not believe that any Frenchman lives who hates this nation more than I do; and all I pray for is that I may be able to revenge myself on it before I die.’

Beaudouin wrote a poem of 514 alexandrines, entitled:

_Les Prisons d’Albion. Ou la malheureuse situation des prisonniers en Angleterre. Bellum nobis haec mala fecit._

I give in the original the first and last ‘chants’ of this embittered production.

I

‘Tu veux, mon cher ami, que ranimant ma verve Je te peigne sans fard, sans crainte, et sans réserve, Le Tableau des tourmens et de l’affliction Sous lesquels sont plongés les captifs d’Albion. J’obéis à la voix, et ma muse craintive, Entonnant à regret la trompette plaintive, Va chanter sur des tons, hélas! bien douloureux, Les maux, les maux cuisans de bien des malheureux.’

LXIV

‘Je t’ai dépeint sans fard l’exacte vérité, Tels sont les maux cruels de la captivité. O vous qui de bonheur goûtez en paix les charmes, Si vous lisez mes vers, donnez-nous quelques larmes; S’ils n’impriment chez vous une tendre affection, Vous êtes, plus que nous, dignes de compassion!’

Speaking of the horrible moral effects of the bad treatment he says:

‘The ruin of their comrades and the depravities which were daily committed in public, impressed right thinking men with so frightful force that this place means a double suffering to them.’

In 1812 it was reported that a batch of incurables would be sent home to France, and Beaudouin resolved to get off with them by making himself