The American prisoners took in newspapers, as they were mostly intelligent and well-educated men, but paid dearly for them.
The papers were the Statesman, Star, Bell’s Weekly Messenger, and Whig. The Statesman cost 28s. a month, plus 16s. a month for conveyance on board.
As the weather grew milder, matters were more comfortable on board until small-pox broke out. Vaccination was extensively employed, but many prisoners refused to submit to it, not from unbelief in its efficacy, but from misery and unwillingness to live! Then came typhus, in April 1814. There were 800 prisoners and 100 British on the ship. The hospital ship being crowded, part of the Crown Prince was set apart for patients, with the result that the mortality was very high. Still Beasley, the American agent, never came near the ship to inquire into affairs.
The gambling evil had now assumed such proportions that the Americans determined to put it down. In spite of the vigorous opposition of the Frenchmen, the ‘wheels of fortune’ were abolished, but the billiard-tables remained, it being urged by the Frenchmen that the rate of a halfpenny per game was not gambling, and that the game afforded a certain amount of exercise. There remained, however, a strong pro-gambling party among the Americans, and these men insisted upon continuing, and the committee sent one of them to the Black Hole without a trial. This angered his mates; a meeting was held, violent speeches were made in which the names of Hampden, Sidney, and Wilkes were introduced, and he was brought out. He was no ordinary rough tar, but a respectable well-educated New England yeoman, with the ‘gift of the gab’; and the results of his harangue were that the committee admitted their error, and he was released.
Finally the billiard-tables were abolished; a great improvement was soon manifest among the captives, education was fostered, and classes formed, although a few rough characters still held aloof, and preferred skylarking, and the slanging and chaffing of passers-by in boats on the river.
In May 1814 four men went on deck and offered themselves for British service. Two got away, but two were caught by their mates, tried, and sentenced to be marked with indian ink on their foreheads with the letter T (= Traitor). The Frenchmen were now being shipped home. Some of them had been prisoners since 1803. Waterhouse comments upon the appalling ignorance among English people in the educated class of all matters American, and quotes the instance of the lady who, wishing to buy some of the articles made by the American prisoners, was confronted by the difficulty of ‘not knowing their language’!
Waterhouse describes the surroundings of the Crown Prince thus:
‘The Medway is a very pleasant river ... its banks are rich and beautiful.... The picture from the banks of the river to the top of the landscape is truly delightful, and beyond any thing I ever saw in my own country, and this is owing to the hedges.... Nearly opposite our doleful prison stands the village of Gillingham, adorned with a handsome church; on the side next Chatham stands the castle, defended by more than an hundred cannon.... This place is noted for making sulphate of iron.... Near to this village of Gillingham is a neat house with a good garden, and surrounded by trees, which was bequeathed by a lady to the oldest boatswain in the Royal Navy.’
Waterhouse complains strongly of the immorality on board: ‘Such a sink of vice, I never saw, or ever dreamt of, as I have seen here,’ He relates a daring escape. A hole was cut through the ship’s side near the stern, the copper being removed all round except on one side so as to lap over and be opened or closed at will. Sixteen men escaped through this, and swam ashore one dark night, the sentry on duty close by being allured away by the singing of droll songs and the passing of a can of grog. At the numbering of the prisoners next morning, the correct tale was made up by the passing through a hole cut in the bulk-head of sixteen men who had been already counted. At another attempt two men slipped into the water; one of them got tired and benumbed with cold, and turned back. The sentry heard him breathing and said: ‘Ah! Here is a porpoise, and I’ll stick him with my bayonet,’ and only the crying out of the poor would-be refugee saved him. The ship’s officers on examining the hole were amazed, and one of them remarked that he did not believe that the Devil himself could keep these fellows in hell if they made up their minds to get out. The next day the other poor chap was seen lying dead on the beach, and to the disgust of the prisoners was allowed to remain there two days before he was buried.
Commodore Osmore was always the butt of the American prisoners. A yarn got about that he had procured a sheep from a farmer ashore without paying for it. Thereupon his appearance was the signal for a chorus of ‘Baa! Baa!’ He was mad with rage, and ordered the port through which the insulting chorus had been made to be closed. The Americans forced it open. The marines drove the prisoners from the fo’c’sle into the ‘Pound’. As more ‘Baa!’s resounded, they were driven below decks, and all market boats were stopped from approaching the ship, so that for two days the prisoners were without extra food. However, Captain Hutchison instituted an inquiry, and peace was arranged.