The evidence which is supposed to establish the charges of inhuman treatment of their prisoners by the British, including that of our own countryman George Borrow, breaks down on examination. But, when in April 1797 the Dutch and French victims of the war entered the prison at Norman Cross, and started the community which for nearly twenty years had to carry on its life under such strange conditions, the place was already shrouded in this atmosphere of acrimonious contention—a stormy and pestilent atmosphere which influenced for evil the lot of those within its walls.
CHAPTER V
PRISON LIFE
The worst prisons are not of stone, they are of throbbing hearts, outraged by an infamous life.—H. W. Beecher.
It is on coming to the consideration of the life of the captives in their prison that the want is felt of any contemporary account written by one of themselves; such accounts are extant for the historian of the Dartmoor Prison, but for Norman Cross the only sources from which a description of the prison life can be given, are the meagre information gleaned from the very few persons who had seen the prison and the prisoners, and who were still alive when the writer commenced his inquiries; private letters written during the period of the Depot’s existence; scanty paragraphs in local and other newspapers; official reports and correspondence; and, finally, the evidence of their pursuits, afforded by the extant examples of the work executed by the prisoners during their captivity.
The prisoners were almost all, either soldiers or sailors, belonging to the enemy’s army and navy, or the crews and officers of privateers. Regulations as to parole varied greatly during the course of the war, but the majority of the officers and the civilians of good social standing, mostly passengers on board ships which had been captured, were out on parole. In each of three of the quadrangles there must have been an average of about 1,750 prisoners, and in the fourth, the north-eastern, in which two of the caserns were, from the opening of the Depot, divided off for the hospital, to which a third was added later for the officers’ hospital, there were probably about 500. This estimate is based upon returns which show that on one occasion only was the number of prisoners returned as low as 3,038. This was in 1799—when the total number of prisoners in Britain was only 25,646. [90] The number had at that time been reduced by a considerable exchange, and on other occasions the numbers were much higher. Thus on the 10th April 1810, out of 44,583 prisoners in Britain, 6,272 were at Norman Cross. On the 11th June 1811, out of 49,132 in all Britain, 5,951 were at Norman Cross. From these figures it is a fair deduction that the prison population with which we have to deal averaged, in the eighteen years during which the prison was occupied, about 6,000, distributed in four sections. Each of the three larger groups occupied a separate quadrangle about 2½ acres in extent, their sleeping-places being four blocks of buildings, in each of which slept 500 men, when they were absolutely packed, 300 in the lower chambers, which were 12 feet high, and 200 in the upper chambers, the height of which was 8 feet 6 inches; they occupied hammocks, arranged in the lower and more lofty rooms, in three tiers, one above the other, and suspended between posts 8 feet apart; in the upper room, the roof of which was below the regulation height for three tiers, in two tiers only.
The size of each block, determined by actual measurement of the rubble foundation, or footing, still lying below the turf, was 100 feet long by 22 feet wide. The hooks for the clews of one end of the hammocks would be fixed into rails on the wooden sides of the building, while for the clews at the foot of the hammocks, posts running along the whole length of the building were erected at the regulation distance (8 feet from the wall of the building), and into these hammock-posts the stanchions were driven. Eight feet on the opposite side of the building was occupied in the same way by the hammocks, and a clear space of 100 feet by 6 would be left in the middle of the chamber through which, on the upper floor, the single stair landed.
In the Royal Navy at the present day the average width of the hammock with a man in it is 18 inches, and they are packed only one or two inches apart (the midshipmen and other junior officers are allowed a foot between each hammock).
Assuming that the prisoners were allowed a little more space than our bluejackets, say, 2 feet for each hammock, there would be fifty hammocks along each side, and as the hammocks were hung in tiers, three in the lower chamber and two in the upper chamber, there would be 150 on each side of the building in the lower chamber, and 100 in the upper chamber, that is, 500 in each of the four caserns in the three quadrangles occupied by the healthy prisoners. This calculation, which the author had worked out before he had seen M. Foulley’s description of his model, corresponds with the figures he gives.
To the sailors the gymnastic performance necessary to get into the upper hammock of a tier of three might be easy, but the soldier would probably have many failures before he became expert. When the head turnkey blew his horn at sunrise, the first duty of the prisoners was to fold up the palliasse, rug, and bolster allowed them, and then to take the clew off the hook on the post, and to hang it with the other clew on the hook in the wall, thus leaving the space which had been filled by the stretched hammocks clear. The general body of the prisoners would then turn out, the fatigue party, one out of every twelve, that is about thirty-six men for each casern, proceeding with their domestic duties. These probably in and out of doors gave them little spare time, when once in twelve days their turn for duty came round for either amusement or other occupation. There were all sorts and conditions of men among those who, starting the day in this way, turned out into the airing-court.