On beef days, the whole is thrown into a large copper; when it is sufficiently boiled, the bone is taken out, and each mess, consisting of six, receives twenty-seven ounces of beef, and one gallon and one pint of soup.
On the fish days, every mess boiled their potatoes and fish in a net made of rope-yarn, that they might have it separately to themselves; after it was boiled, it was taken up in wooden buckets, with which each mess were provided; and each prisoner, being also furnished with a wooden spoon, sets round the bucket, on the wet floor, and makes a fierce attack.
After making these, and some other demands, which we considered ourselves entitled to, most of which were immediately granted, but some delayed, as we shall note hereafter, our sufferings were somewhat relieved.
Could not these have been removed by our agent long before? We find but few men so honest that they do not need looking to sometimes by those who are interested in their honesty. These contractors would have been as honest as many other men, with sharp looking after. Was it not, then, the duty of Mr. Beasley to see that the prisoners had what the government of England allowed them? If it was not, what was his duty? Was he sent there, as the log of wood in the fable was sent by Jupiter into the pond, to be god for the frogs?
We found, by the printed regulations delivered us by Capt. Cotgrave, the government allowed each prisoner a hammock, one blanket, one horse-rug, and a bed, containing four pounds of flocks; these articles too were to serve us two years. By the same regulations, the prisoners were to receive for clothing, every eighteen months, one yellow round-about jacket, one pair of pantaloons, and a waistcoat of the same materials, as the government of England allow for their soldiers; and one pair of shoes and one shirt, every nine months. The shirt, though coarse, was a change which we had not had for a long time before. All these we demanded and received; we also received a woollen cap, which was to serve us eighteen months.
I cannot leave this subject without some little description of several of the articles of clothing. I will begin with the cap, and take them in their natural order, from head to foot.
The cap was woollen, about an inch thick, and seemed to have been spun in a rope-walk, but much coarser than common rope-yarn. The jacket was not large enough to meet around the smallest of us, although reduced to mere skeletons by such continued fasting; the sleeves came about half way down the arm, and the hand stuck out like a spade; the waistcoat was short—it would not meet before, nor down to the pantaloons—thus leaving a space between of three or four inches; the pantaloons, which were as tight as our skin itself, came down to the middle of the shin. The shoes, which was the pedestal for all the ornaments above, were made of list, interwoven and fastened to pieces of wood an inch and a half thick. The figure we made in this dress was no common one.
“Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici?”—Hor. A. P.
“My friends, were you admitted to see this sight, could you keep from laughing?” When you see us tackled, and put upon runners—skeletons as we were.
By the regulations handed us, we also found that the Board allowed a sweeper to every hundred men, to sweep and keep clean the prison, who was to be taken from among the prisoners, and allowed by the government three pence per day; and one out of every two hundred was allowed four pence halfpenny a day for cooking. In like manner, a barber had three pence; and the nurses in the hospital, six pence a day. All these offices were occupied by Frenchmen, as was also the employments in the mechanic arts at six pence per day.