‘Beer: to be equal in quality to that issued on H.M.’s ships. Beef: to be good and wholesome fresh beef, and delivered in clean quarters. Cheese: to be good Gloucester or Wiltshire, or equal in quality. Pease: to be of the white sort and good boilers. Greens: to be stripped of outside leaves and fit for the copper. Beer: every 7 barrels to be brewed from 8 bushels of the strongest amber malt, and 6 or 7 lb. of good hops at £1 18s. per ton. Bread: to be equal in quality to that served on H.M.’s ships.’
As if there was really some wish on the part of the authorities to have things in order, the custom began in 1804 for the Transport Board to send to its prison agents and prison-ship commanders this notice:
‘I am directed by the Board to desire that you will immediately forward to this office by coach a loaf taken indiscriminately from the bread issued to the prisoners on the day you receive this letter.’
In so many cases was the specimen bread sent pronounced ‘not fit to be eaten’, that circulars were sent that all prisons and ships would receive a model loaf of the bread to be served out to prisoners, ‘made of whole wheaten meal actually and bona fide dressed through an eleven shilling cloth’.
Nor was the regulation quantity less satisfactory than the nominal quality. In 1812 the scale of victualling on prison ships according to the advertisement to contractors was:
Sunday. 1½ lb. bread. Monday. ½ lb. fresh beef. Tuesday. ½ lb. cabbage or turnip. Thursday. 1 ounce Scotch barley. Saturday. ⅓ ounce salt. ¼ ounce onions. Wednesday. 1½ lb. bread, 1 lb. good sound herrings, 1 lb. good sound potatoes. Friday. 1½ lb. bread, 1 lb. good sound cod, 1 lb. potatoes.
In the year 1778 there were 924 American prisoners of war in England. It has been shown before (p. [11]) how the fact of their ill-treatment was forcibly taken up by their own Government, but the following extract from a London newspaper further shows that the real cause of their ill-treatment was no secret:
‘As to the prisoners who were kept in England’ (this is the sequel of remarks about our harsh treatment of American prisoners in America), ‘their penury and distress was undoubtedly great, and was much marked by the fraud and cruelty of those who were entrusted with their government, and the supply of their provisions. For these persons, who certainly never had any orders for ill-treatment of the prisoners by countenance in it, having, however, not been overlooked with the utmost vigilance, besides their prejudice and their natural cruelty, considered their offices as only lucrative jobs which were created merely for their emolument. Whether there was not some exaggeration, as there usually is in these accounts, it is certain that though the subsistence accorded them by Government would indeed have been sufficient, if honestly administered, to have sustained human nature, in the respect to the mere articles of foods, yet the want of clothes, firing, and bedding, with all the other various articles which custom or nature regards as conducive to health and comfort, became practically insupportable in the extremity of the winter. In consequence of the complaint by the prisoners, the matter was very humanely taken up in the House of Peers by Lord Abingdon ... and soon after a liberal subscription was carried on in London and other parts, and this provided a sufficient remedy for the evil.’
On April 13, 1778, a Contractors’ Bill was brought in to Parliament by Sir Philip Jenning Clarke ‘for the restraining of any person being a Member of the House of Commons, from being concerned himself or any person in trust for him, in any contract made by the Commissioners of H.M.’s Navy or Treasury, the Board of Ordnance, or by any other person or persons for the public service, unless the said contract shall be made at a public bidding’.
The first reading of the Bill was carried by seventy-one to fifty, the second reading by seventy-two to sixty-one. Success in the Lords was therefore regarded as certain. Yet it was actually lost by two votes upon the question of commitment, and the exertion of Government influence in the Bill was taken to mean a censure on certain Treasury officials.