Thence to Portsmouth, where they got a first sight of the hulks, which made Gille shudder, but he was relieved to learn that he and his fellows were destined for a shore prison.
On September 28, 1810, they arrived at Portchester. Here they were minutely registered, and clothed in a sleeved vest, waistcoat, and trousers of yellow cloth, and a blue and white striped cotton shirt, and provided with a hammock, a flock mattress of two pounds weight, a coverlet, and tarred cords for hammock lashings.
Gille gives much interesting detail about the theatre. The Agent, William Patterson, found it good policy to further any scheme by which the prisoners could be kept wholesomely occupied, and so provided all the wood necessary for the building of the theatre, which was in charge of an ex-chief-machinist of the Théâtre Feydau in Paris, Carré by name. He made a row of boxes and a hall capable of holding 300 people, and thoroughly transformed the base story of the keep, which was unoccupied because prisoners confined there in past times had died in great numbers, and the authorities deemed it unwholesome as a sleeping-place.
Carré’s Arabian Féerie was a tremendous success, but it led to the Governmental interference with the theatre already mentioned. An English major who took a lively interest in the theatre (probably the Major Gentz alluded to by St. Aubin) had his whole regiment in to see it at one shilling a head, and published in the Portsmouth papers a glowing panegyric upon it, and further invited the directors of the Portsmouth Theatre to ‘come to see how a theatre should be run’. They came, were very pleased and polite, but very soon after came an order from the authorities that the theatre should be shut. However, by the influence of the Agent, it was permitted to continue, on the condition that no English people were to be admitted.
Carré painted a drop-scene which was a masterpiece. It was a view of Paris from a house at the corner of the Place Dauphine on the Pont-Neuf, showing the Café Paris on the point of the island, the Bridges of the Arts, the Royal and the Concorde, and the Bains des Bons-Hommes in the distance, the Colonnade of the Louvre, the Tuileries with the national flag flying, the Hôtel de Monnaies, the Quatre Nations, and the ‘théatins’ of the Quai Voltaire. It may be imagined how this home-touch aroused the enthusiasm of the poor exiles!
New plays were received from Paris, amongst them Le Petit Poucet, Le Diable ou la Bohémienne, Les Deux Journées and Adolphe et Clara. The musical pieces were accompanied by an orchestra (of prisoners, of course) under Corret of the Conservatoire, who composed fresh music for such representations as Françoise de Foix and Pierre le Grand, as their original music was too expensive, and who played the cornet solos, Gourdet being first violin.
Gille’s own métier was to make artificial flowers, and to give lessons in painting, for which he took pupils at one franc fifty centimes a month—the regulation price for all lessons. He also learned the violin, and had an instrument made by a fellow prisoner.
At Portchester, as elsewhere, a Masonic Lodge was formed among the prisoners.
In 1812 was brought to light the great plot for the 70,000 prisoners in England to rise simultaneously, to disarm their guards, who were only militia men, and to carry on a guerilla warfare, avoiding all towns. At Portchester the 7,000 prisoners were to overpower the garrison, which had two cannon and 800 muskets, and march to Forton, where were 3,000 prisoners. The success of the movement was to depend upon the co-operation of the Boulogne troops and ships, in keeping the British fleet occupied, but the breaking up of the Boulogne Camp, in order to reinforce the Grand Army for the expedition to Russia, caused the abandonment of the enterprise.
The news of the advance of the Allies in France only served to bind the Imperialists together: the tricolour cockade was universally worn, and an English captain who entered the Castle wearing a white cockade was greeted with hisses, groans, and even stone-throwing, and was only saved from further mischief by the Agent—a man much respected by the prisoners—who got him away and gave him a severe lecture on his foolishness. On Easter Day, 1814, the news of Peace, of the accession of Louis XVIII, and of freedom for the prisoners came. The Agent asked the prisoners to hoist the white flag as a greeting to the French officer who was coming to announce formally the great news, and to arrange for the departure of the prisoners. A unanimous refusal was the result, and a British soldier had to hoist the flag. Contre-amiral Troude came. There was a strong feeling against him, inasmuch as it was reported that in order to gain his present position he had probably given up his fleet to England, and a resolution was drawn up not to acclaim him. All the same, Gille says, the speech he made so impressed the prisoners that he was loudly cheered, and went away overcome with emotion.