Complaints were made at one time in Parliament, and in the papers, and abroad, of the food and clothing supplied to the prisoners, but they were proved to be without foundation. Two Commissioners were appointed by the Government to investigate the matter, and they reported that the health of the prisoners was
excellent, and that the food was good. As to the clothing, they said that many of the prisoners had such a propensity for gaming that, notwithstanding every precaution, they sold their clothes, bedding, and even their food before it was due, to raise a trifle to gamble with.
But of all who slandered the Government for their treatment of the prisoners, no one was worse than that most amiable and pleasant writer, George Borrow. In his book called Lavengro, with much picturesqueness, but little truth, he thus describes the prison itself:—“What a strange appearance had those mighty caserns (five or six of them, he says, but there were sixteen) with their blank, blind walls, without windows or gratings, and their slanting roofs, out of which, through orifices where the tiles had been removed, would be protruded dozens of grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide expanse of country unfolded from that airy height.”
Then again, in his account of the food supplied to the prisoners, he thus grossly libels the Government, and indeed the English nation:—“Much had the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said—of England, in general so kind and bountiful:—rations of carrion meat and bread, from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless and a captive. And such, alas! was the fare in those caserns.”
What could have been the matter with the man to write such stuff as this!
One other instance of the reckless way in which he writes about Norman Cross. Speaking of the manner in which a good many of the prisoners employed themselves in straw-plaiting of a very superior description, and how in course of time they thus competed in what was an employment of the English in certain neighbourhoods, Borrow gives the following
ridiculous account of the manner in which the aid of British soldiery was invoked, to put a stop to the manufacture on the part of the poor prisoners:—“Then those ruthless inroads, called in the story of the place straw plait hunts, when in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries of life, were in the habit of making, red-coat battalions were marched into the prison, who, with the bayonet’s point, carried havoc and ruin into every convenience which ingenious wretchedness had been endeavouring to raise around it: and the triumphant exit with the miserable booty: and, worst of all, the accursed bonfire on the barrack parade of the plaited contrabands beneath the view of the glaring eye-balls from their lofty roofs, amidst the hurrahs of the troops, frequently drowned in the curses poured down from above like a tempest shower, or in the terrific whoop of ‘Vive l’Empereur.’”
Very rhetorical, but altogether improbable and utterly nonsensical!
The explanation of these exaggerations and misstatements on the part of Borrow is to be found in the fact that, as he admits, he was quite a boy when he saw Norman Cross barracks. His father was an officer in one of the regiments on guard there (and they were constantly changing), and his account was written years afterwards, when it was not likely he would remember accurately what he had heard and seen so long ago. Indeed, he acknowledges as much when he begins his account by the ominous words, “If I remember right,”—which he certainly did not.
No. The unfortunate prisoners of Norman Cross were not petted, neither were they uncared for. They were treated as prisoners of war, not as criminals; and were not employed (as English prisoners were in France,) in public and other works. They had, poor fellows, a heavy lot to bear, but it is an abominable falsehood