As it is certainly the Duty of every State to provide for the support of its people while in Captivity, so whatever may have been its arrangements with respect to victualling it has been the custom in all former wars between Great Britain and France for each Country to provide Clothing for its own Subjects and agreeably to this Custom all the British Prisoners in France as well as the Russian Prisoners taken in Holland, are now actually supplied with clothing by our Agent Captain Cotes at the expence of this Country although you state as a reason for the French Government not clothing their people here that the British Prisoners in France are clothed at the expence of your Government.
Whatever may latterly have been the effects of the prisoners wanting clothing it cannot be denied, that until very lately, the prisoners at all the depots were generally in as good a state of health as at any former period even when victualled by their own Country. Some indeed had fallen victims to an incurable spirit of Gaming, by sporting away their allowance of Provisions as well as their clothing and the Bedding with which they had been amply supplied by us, but we believe that the number that has suffered has hitherto not been very considerable. In our letter of the 22nd April and 20th of May last we represented to you fully the effects of this pernicuous Practise, which had become so prevalent in the Prisons and we proposed to you a measure which if adopted we doubt not would have greatly tended to put a stop to it, but for what reason we know not, you have not hitherto taken any notice to us of our communications on that subject and from the want of your concurrence the utmost exertions of our Agents in pursuance of our orders for prohibiting Gaming have as yet proved ineffectual. While this practise continues it is evident that if the Ration of the Prisoners were tenfold what it is they would still sport it away, and the circumstance of their now disposing of the Rations issued to them is a proof that it is not on Account of the Insufficiency of those Rations, but merely from the Gambling spirit above mentioned, that they also dispose of their bedding and clothing. Indeed, so far from their being obliged to part with their clothing to purchase provisions it appears even from your own Statement respecting the Prisoners at Liverpool that they actually dispose of a part of their Subsistence to procure clothes.
With respect to your observation of the Prisoners not being permitted to increase their means of Subsistence by Labour which you say “the most severe Administration would not refuse to the greatest criminals” we think it proper to acquaint you that the prisoners at all the depots in this Country are at full liberty to exercise their Industry within the Prisons in manufacturing and selling any articles they may think proper excepting hats which would effect the Revenue in opposition to the Laws; Obscene Toys, and drawings, and articles made either from their clothing or the Prison Stores and by means of this privilege some of them have been known to earn and to carry off upon their release, more than 100 guineas each.
Upon this occasion it has become highly expedient for us once more solemnly to impress upon your mind the necessity of a speedy relief being afforded to your people with respect to the article of Clothing a supply of which would materially if not entirely remove the principal causes of their present distress.
If you or rather your Government delay to furnish this supply whatever evils may ensue and these may justly be apprehended, cannot, after such repeated notices as we have for a long time, given you, be imputed to this Country but to the state which in this instance has so entirely neglected its own people.
We are, etc.,
(Signed) Rupert George.
Ambrose Serle.
John Schank.
M. Otto.
Extract from a Report made by Commissioner Serle to the Transport Board dated 25th July, 1800.
The Prisoners complained of the smallness of the Ration but not of the Quality supplied. They wished for more bread and for beer instead of water. I found however that the ration by their mode of Cookery which is left to themselves is not quite so insufficient and destitute as some of them chose to represent it.
The French are generally great devourers of Bread and therefore what would be a very competent allowance to an Englishman appears a contracted one to them, while the meat which an Englishman would scarcely think enough is to them a reasonable allowance. The Ration of a pound of bread with half a pound of meat Vegetables etc. digested into a Broth or soup yielding seven quarts per diem to every six men affords a support which our labouring poor rarely have at any time, but certainly not during the present scarcity, and which to men living without labour seems enough to maintain them in a general state of good health. And I have been informed by some who are most qualified to know, that the French Prisons had never had so few sick as at the present time. [283] Some indeed who had sported away their allowance in Gambling to prevent which the Agents have taken every precaution in their Power are in fact destitute enough and so they might have been if their Ration had been ten times as great. But this is their own fault entirely and it cannot be expected that if a Prisoner be pleased to throw away his food by vice, that Government must be at the expence of supplying him again. However wherever this has been discovered particularly as it may be in the Article of Bread the whole has been seized by the agent of Officers of the Prison, from the Winners or Purchasers and distributed amongst the Prisoners at large.