Howard condemned another prison at Forton near Gosport, where the rations were bad and the bread short weight. He says: “The straw by long use was turned to dust in the mattresses and many of them, here and in other places, had been emptied to clear them of vermin. The prisons at Pembroke were very unsatisfactory and the prisoners in great destitution; most of them had no shoes or stockings and some were also without shirts; they had no victualling tables, nor did they know what was their allowance; they lay in general on the boards without straw for there were but four hammocks in two rooms. Here was a courtyard but no water or sewer.” At Liverpool the French and Spanish prisoners were kept apart because of the animosities between the two nations; here and wherever French prisoners were confined, a money allowance was made to all prisoners and regularly paid. “There was besides a supply from the same court of clothes, linen and shoes to those who were destitute of these articles, a noble and exemplary provision much to the honour of those who conducted public affairs in France.” At this same time a bounty was paid by the English government to English prisoners in France.
War prisoners were also lodged in Scotch and Irish prisons, the first fairly well, the latter indifferently. In all these prisons above mentioned, there was a proportion of Americans, whose situation was much the same as that of the French. In Pembroke prison they were without shoes and stockings, and they lay on straw which was unchanged for six or seven weeks at a time. As the eighteenth century drew to its close and the war was waged with increasing severity, more and more prisoners fell into the hands of the opposing forces. The star of Napoleon was now in the ascendant and while all Europe submitted to his conquering hand, England still stoutly maintained the combat by sea. The supremacy of the British navy, never really in doubt, was conclusively established by the victory of Trafalgar. French warships were continually captured and their crews constantly passed on to swell the total in war prisons. It became a matter of some difficulty to make proper provision for their reception and safe custody. In the earlier years the floating prisons, the old war ships, long disused, were largely utilised and great numbers of prisoners were kept on board these hulks, which were moored in harbours and river estuaries on our southern coast. The system was open to serious objection. To keep great masses of men disarmed, it is true, but distinctly hostile, and at all times potential foes, in the very heart of the kingdom within easy reach of our naval arsenals was always a source of keen disquietude. The prisoners were constantly turbulent, ripe for mutiny and ready to break into excesses. Thus a number on board the hulks at the Hamoaze managed to set fire to their ships hoping to escape in the confusion; others, again, cut through bulkheads and decks, seized boats and made for the shore, bent upon hostile attack. As the best security against these dangers, it was decided to create one or more large prison establishments inland, at some comparatively isolated spot, at a distance from any large town. Of these the principal were at Norman Cross and Dartmoor.
Norman Cross is in the parish of Yaxley, in the county of Huntingdon near that grand old thoroughfare of England, the Great North Road, along which coaches might be driven four abreast. In one corner was a large piece of pasture land, some forty acres in extent which the Government purchased in 1796, to be utilised in the erection of barracks for prisoners of war. The situation was exceedingly healthy, being at the highest point of the road sloping up for a mile and a half from what was then Whittlesea Mere. It was not too near the sea to make escape easy, yet near enough to Yarmouth, King’s Lynn and Wisbeach to facilitate the landing and transport of prisoners to their destination.
The prison consisted of sixteen large buildings of wood, very long and lofty, each two stories high, placed at the end of four rectangular pieces of land (four blocks in each), nearly in the centre of the forty acre field, and occupying altogether some fifteen acres. Each rectangular block was separated from the others and was surrounded by very high and strong palisades. They were placed symmetrically round a circular block-house, mounting guns which commanded every one of the sixteen buildings as well as the ground surrounding them. The establishment provided accommodation for five thousand prisoners and that number was frequently exceeded. Besides these central buildings, which may be called the prison proper, many others were scattered about the enclosures, intended for various purposes, such as kitchens, bakehouses, guard-rooms, turnkeys’ lodges, and more important than all to the safe custody of the prisoners, two large wooden barracks like each other, one at the east and the other at the west of the whole enclosure, for the accommodation of two regiments of infantry that formed the garrison.
The English officers were quartered in a large wooden house close to the road, towards the southeast corner of the enclosure and close to the house of the commandant. This last was the only building of brick in the whole place; and remains to this day together with the officers’ mess room and the house where they were quartered, now cased with brick. It is said that five hundred hands were employed in the construction of these buildings, and the work was steadily pressed forward toward completion. The prison possessed many natural advantages; a good soil with an abundant water supply and salubrious air. The wells were of considerable depth and yielded excellent water. In passing now along the Peterborough Road, some of these old wells may be recognised by the boards which protect them, being still in use for the cattle grazing peacefully on the old prison site.
The discipline maintained at Norman Cross was strict. “Lights out” sounded at 9 P. M., when all prisoners went into their hammocks, sentries were posted, and pickets patrolling made the round every half hour. No parole was given as it was extended only to officers residing in other parts of the United Kingdom. The rations issued were not excessive and consisted of one pound of bread, half a pound of beef with vegetables for five days in the week, and on the two remaining maigre days, Wednesday and Friday, a pound of salt cod or herring was substituted for the beef. Ale and wine could be purchased at the canteen. A market was also held within the prison enclosure for two hours every morning, when, as at Dartmoor, goods were bought and sold. The neighbours brought in supplies of food and necessaries and carried off articles manufactured by the prisoners in which they displayed much ingenuity and industry. These clever French fingers produced models of ships exact in the minutest details, a model of the west front of Peterborough Cathedral in plaited straw, many models of the death-dealing guillotine, and a great variety of boxes, fire screens, dressing cases, tea caddies, watch-stands, and crucifixes. They made money and escaped the greatest evil, the unrest that follows enforced idleness.
They were once on the eve of mutiny. A spirit of general insubordination grew among them, born of the cheerless monotony of their lives and their despairing hopelessness. The governor was harsh and unsympathetic. Mutiny was imminent, fostered by the severity of his iron rule. The presence of a masterful and intractable soul, a man who had been a revolutionary, supplied the ringleader and a conspiracy was quickly organised. One morning a red flag was hoisted on the principal barracks and the malcontents, greatly excited, filled the yards with loud shouts and threatening gestures. The commandant, a Major Kelley, promptly turned out the troops, for the most part militia, surrounded the enclosure and prepared to take summary measures. The guns of the central block house commanded all parts of the interior and he was urged to fire into all the yards, by way of warning, and follow it up by marching strong bodies of infantry inside to shoot down all who did not forthwith retire into their barracks. Meanwhile a mounted messenger was despatched to Peterborough and soon returned with several troops of yeomanry. The tumult still continued within the prison, mixed with the sounds of heavy blows aimed at the palisade. The prisoners meant to break through and succeeded at one point, where they were received at the point of the bayonet and driven back under a heavy fire. Some got through, however; nine got clear away and were never re-captured; others were caught in the next few days. This collision and the stern action of the authorities crushed the mutiny which was never renewed and the further history of Norman Cross was uneventful. The prison was completely emptied in 1814 after Napoleon’s abdication at Fontainebleau.
It will be seen further on how the great multitude of war prisoners in England (nearly fifty thousand) were located throughout the country. A large contingent (six thousand) was kept constantly at Norman Cross; nearly ten thousand were in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, at the Forton prison and in the hulks; over five thousand were at Portchester; more than four thousand at Stapleton prison near Bristol, and twenty-five hundred in Edinburgh between the castle and Valleyfield. A very large number were confined in the far off western wilds of Dartmoor where a great war prison was constructed at Princetown in 1806.
The foundation stone of the Dartmoor prison was laid on the twentieth of March in 1806, by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, Lord Warden of the stannaries, the chief official of the Duchy of Cornwall, in other words, the representative of the proprietor and Lord Paramount, H. R. H., the Prince of Wales. The site was selected by a commissioner of the Transport Board, the supreme authority in the war prison department, the ground of preference being that “water was plentiful and excellent, the soil gravel, peat for fuel abundant, with convenient access to the high road and an abundant supply of granite for building.” The Prince of Wales (George IV) gave as many acres as were required by the Board so that the possibility of a garden for vegetables was an additional consideration which was likely to tend to the health and comfort of the