In 1804 the total mortality among all the prisoners for the whole year was only eighteen. On 1st January 1801 nine died in one day, and to this day’s entry there is added the explanatory note, “These men being in the habit of selling their bedding and rations, died of debility in this prison, there not being room in the hospital to receive them.” This is a terrible indictment against someone, even though the victims were the lost bestial creatures whose fuller history was written at Dartmoor—prisoners ostracised by their comrades, banished to some one compartment of the prison, apparently No. 13, and left to die there by their compatriots who occupied the same quadrangle. This single day’s record justifies what was said in the introductory remarks as to the lot of prisoners of war, but—Laus Deo—the advance in humanity, and the consequent change of opinion as to the suitable treatment of prisoners of all kinds, and the progress of hygienic, medical, and other sciences, make it inconceivable that, under any circumstances, similar tragedies could now occur in any European country.
No exact percentage of mortality for the seventeen years during which the prison was occupied can be given, the records being incomplete, and the population of the prison changing continually from week to week and month to month, owing to the accession of fresh prisoners and the departure of others, due to death, transference to other prisons, or exchange. The reports to the Commissioners for the sick and hurt, except in the incomplete bundles of certificates, do not appear until the second period of the war, although the sick and hurt passed at once under the care of this Board as soon as they ceased to be prisoners in health. The actual number of deaths certified is 1,770, of which 1,000 occurred during the epidemic 1800–01, the remainder being distributed over the remaining fifteen years in which the prison was occupied.
It is possible that the original register kept at this prison before the Peace of Amiens, 1797–1802, might have been sent to France and may yet be found, but at present separate bundles of single certificates are for many years the only records from which these figures are obtained. The total number of deaths registered of French prisoners who died at Norman Cross in the second period of the war, 1803–14, was 559. The highest number recorded in any one year, was 98 in 1806. The lowest, in any complete year, was 18 in 1804. One of those whose death is recorded in that year is a boy of ten, a native of Bordeaux, captured on a privateer; he died of consumption. The diseases, phthisis, hæmoptysis, scrophula, which appear again and again under the heading “Cause of Death,” were all, as well as many of those entered as catarrh and debility, tubercular diseases, due to the condition so favourable to contagion in which the prisoners slept, herded together in closely packed chambers, ventilated very imperfectly. In all probability, in cold weather, every aperture by which fresh air could enter was closed by the inmates themselves, who would not be imbued with twentieth-century ideas as to the need of fresh air.
Putting on one side the tubercular cases and the rare epidemics, there was comparatively little sickness among the prisoners. When an epidemic occurred, “Les Misérables,” whose powers of resistance had been lowered by the semi-starvation which they had brought upon themselves, naturally sickened and in too many instances succumbed.
Owing, doubtless, to three causes—the absence of facility for getting drink, the spare but sufficient diet, and the regulation which appointed that the prisoners should, unless in bad weather, live through the day in the open air [“They have free access to the several apartments from the opening of the prisons in the morning, until they are shut up on the approach of night, with the exception only of the times when they are fumigating, or cleansing for the preservation of health” (Commissioner Serle, Appendix D, No. 31)]—the rate of mortality among the prisoners in confinement was lower than that among those on parole, and, as far as it has been possible to come approximately to the percentage rate of mortality, than that also of the British soldiers who constituted the garrison. The absurd statements of Mr. Charretie, the falsehood of which he had to acknowledge, and Colonel Lebertre’s lie, that at Norman Cross 4,000 out of 10,000 died, [166] gave rise to an impression which, once made, has not been easily effaced. Of those who read these statements in France, few read the statement of facts which prove them false. Taking the total number of those who had been imprisoned at the Depot, up to 1813, as at least 30,000, and the deaths at 1,800 (these figures being approximate only), the actual proportions of deaths would be 6 per cent., instead of 40 per cent. as affirmed by Lebertre. A return showing the total number of prisoners and the number of sick in every Depot or other place of confinement for prisoners of war, called for on 10th April 1810, and a similar return presented in the following year, show the extraordinary healthiness of the prison at Norman Cross, and of all the other prisons in Great Britain on each of those days. [167a]
In August 1812, in answer to the calumnies in the columns of the Moniteur, a return was obtained as to the health of the prisoners in the prison ships in Herne Bay and at the Dartmoor Depot. In the former there were 6,100 in health, 61 sick; in the latter, 7,500 well, 70 sick. The proportion of sick was less than in other prisons not of war. [167b]
This was at a time when the influx of prisoners from the Peninsula and elsewhere had caused the prisons to be so crowded, that it had become necessary to again spend large amounts in building new prisons. At the time of the return in 1810, £130,000 was being expended on a new prison at Perth; Norman Cross contained 272 more than the highest number for whom it was calculated to provide accommodation, and there must have been 2,000 men in each quadrangle, except that for the sick.
In these two years the number of deaths at Norman Cross was respectively only forty-one and thirty-three. When a prisoner fell ill, and was admitted into the prison hospital, he was treated as well as, or better than, the soldiers in the military hospital outside the prison walls.
We have already dealt with the reckless statement of the French while dealing with Mr. Pillet. They are wicked calumnies, which, even on a casual examination, carry with them their own contradiction. The British Government expended an enormous sum on the prisoners, and in 1817 made a claim on the French for the maintenance of French prisoners in England. [168] The correctness of that claim was never questioned; whether it was settled is another matter. According to Alison, the British Government generously forgave the debt.
The prisoners in each quadrangle were visited daily by the surgeons, and any prisoner complaining of illness, and found by the doctors to have good ground for his complaint, was removed at once to the hospital, where he was, according to the sworn evidence of the French surgeons themselves, carefully and liberally treated. From the pay-sheets accompanying the hospital accounts, the earliest of which at the Record Office is for the year 1806, the staff of the hospital appears to have been at that time, the surgeon (Mr. Geo. Walker), two assistant-surgeons (M. Pierre Larfeuil and Mr. Anthony Howard), a dispenser, an assistant-dispenser (prisoner), dispensary porter (do) and messenger (do), two hospital mates and clerk, a steward of victualling, a steward of bedding, with two assistants (prisoners), two turnkeys, matron, and seamstress (the two last named and the wives of the married turnkeys being, up to the advent of the surgeon’s bride in 1808, the only women within the prison walls), a messenger, and the following thirteen, who were all prisoners, two interpreters, one tailor, one washerman, one carpenter (who made bed-cradles and other appliances for the ward and did odd jobs), an assistant lamplighter (a more important post than it sounds, as it would be very convenient for any prisoner or prisoners wanting to escape to find a careless lamplighter, who would forget to light, or supply with sufficient oil, one or two of the numerous lamps which lighted the prison and its environs), two stocking-menders, two labourers, one barber for the infirm and itchy, and two nurses—in all, thirteen British and twenty French prisoners, the staff of nurses being, of course, increased if necessary. [169] The hospital was evidently conducted on a liberal scale. The dietary was ample; it was as follows: