Captain Milne of the Bahama was exasperated at these escapes, and attempts to escape, and was brutal in his endeavours to get hold of the tools with which the prisoners had worked. He tried the effect of starvation, but this only fanned the spirit of revolt in the ship, the state of life in which became very bad, threats, disputes, quarrels and duels being of everyday occurrence. The climax came when bad weather prevented the delivery of bread, and the prisoners were put on biscuit. They assembled in the parc, the open space between the two batteries, forty feet square, and declared they would not disperse until other provisions were served out. Milne was mad with anger and drink, and ordered the soldiers to fire upon the prisoners, but the young officer in command would not respect the order, and, instead, counselled a more moderate action. Bonnefoux managed to calm the prisoners, and determined personally to interview Milne, and represented to him that to compel eight hundred desperate, hungry men to descend from the parc would mean bloodshed. The captain yielded, and peace was temporarily assured.
However, more hole-boring was discovered; Rousseau, the Baron’s friend, slipped overboard and swam away, but was captured just as he was landing; the result being that the watch kept was stricter than ever.
The Baron here dilates upon the frightful immorality of the life on the Bahama. He says:
‘Il n’existait ni crainte, ni retenue, ni amour-propre dans la classe qui n’avait pas été dotée des bienfaits de quelque éducation. On y voyait donc régner insolemment l’immoralité la plus perverse, les outrages les plus honteux à la pudeur et les actes les plus dégoûtants, le cynisme le plus effronté, et dans ce lieu de misère générale une misère plus grande encore que tout ce qu’on peut imaginer.’
There were three classes of prisoners.
(1) Les Raffalés. (2) Les Messieurs ou Bourgeois. (3) Les Officiers.
The Raffalés were the lowest, and lowest of the Raffalés were the ‘Manteaux impériaux.’ These had nothing in the world but one covering, which swarmed with lice, hence the facetious allusion in their name to the bees of the Imperial Mantle. These poor wretches eat nothing during the day, for their gambling left them nothing to eat, but at night they crept about picking up and devouring the refuse of the food. They slept packed closely side by side on the deck. At midnight the officer of the evening gave the word, ‘Par le flanc droit!’ and all turned on to their right sides. At 3 a.m. the word rang out ‘Pare à virer!’[[3]] and all turned on to their left sides.
They gambled with dice for their rations, hammocks, clothes, anything, and the winners sold for two sous what often was worth a franc. They had a chief who was fantastically garbed, and a drummer with a wooden gamelle. Sometimes they were a terror to the other prisoners, but could always be appeased with something to gamble with.
Bonnefoux’s companions worked in wood and straw. The Bahama had been captured from the Spaniards and was built of cedar, and the wood extracted by the prisoners in making escape holes they worked into razor-boxes and toilette articles. Bonnefoux himself gave lessons in French, drawing, mathematics, and English, and published an English Grammar, a copy of which is at Paris, in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
Gradually the spread of the taste for education had a refining and civilizing effect on board the Bahama, and when Bonnefoux finally obtained parole leave, the condition of affairs was very much improved.