LITMIR.BIZ

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head of a sentinel, and causing him dangerous injuries.”

      “August 19th.—F. Lebot, for throwing a stone at the postman, as he was returning from Tavistock.”

      “August 15th.—A. Creville, for drawing a knife on the hospital turnkey.”

      “August 25th.—A.  Hourra, for attempting to stab William Norris, one of the turnkeys, with a knife.”

      “September 4th.—Jean Swan, for drawing a knife on the hospital turnkey.”

      “September 4th.—F. Champs, for striking R. Arnold, one of the turnkeys, with a stone and cutting his head.”

      “September 24th.—S. Schamond, for throwing down a sentinel and attempting to take away his bayonet.”

      “September 30th.—A. Normand, for striking Mr. Arnold, the steward.”

      “October 16th.—G. Massieu, for attempting to stab one of the turnkeys.”

      “October 16th.—Pierre Fabre, for throwing a stone at a sentinel and cutting his face.”

      “October 20th.—W. Johnson, for throwing stones at a sentinel.”

      “October 23rd.—B.  Marie, for knocking down a turnkey and attempting to seize the arms of a sentinel.”  (See March 23rd, below.)

      “November 30th.—N. Moulle and B. Saluberry, for having daggers concealed on their persons.”

      The cachot records for March and April, 1813, are even more significant:

      “March 13th.—P. Boissard, for striking a turnkey and threatening to murder him on the first opportunity.”

      “March 23rd.—F. Bilat, for striking a prisoner named B. Marie, who died shortly afterwards, and taking away his provisions by force.”

      “March 28th.—J. Beauclere, for threatening to stab Mr. Moore, because he could not procure employment for him on the Buildings.”

      “April 6th.—F. Le Jeune, for being one of the principal provision buyers in the prison, and for repeatedly writing blood-thirsty and threatening letters.”

      “April 10th.—M. Girandi and A. Moine, for being guilty of infamous vices.”

      For offences against the laws of the land, more grave than those which could be dealt with by the authorities of the various depots, the prisoners, like British subjects, were liable to be tried at the assizes—thus Nicholas Deschamps and Jean Roubillard were tried at Huntingdon Assizes for forging £1 bank-notes (which they had done most skilfully).  This was at that time a capital offence, and they were sentenced to death, but were respited during His Majesty’s pleasure, and remained in Huntingdon Gaol under sentence of death for nine terrible years, until Buonaparte was sent to Elba in 1814; they were then pardoned, and sent back to France with the rest of the liberated prisoners.

      On the 9th September 1808, Charles François Marie Bourchier, who had been convicted at Huntingdon Assizes of having, in an attempt to escape, stabbed Alexander Halliday with a knife, was hanged at the prison in the sight of the whole garrison, who were under arms, and of all the prisoners.  This is the only recorded civil execution at Norman Cross; there are several recorded instances of summary military justice, prisoners being shot dead in attempts to escape.  It must be borne in mind that the prisoners were still our foes, who would, if they could escape, be at once in the ranks of the enemy’s army fighting against us; and to prevent their escape, there was, at Norman Cross, little beyond the muskets and bayonets of the Norman Cross sentries—sixty of them posted round and about the prison.

      The cleanliness, sanitary and domestic, of the prison, the inhabitants of which averaged probably about 5,500 men (6,270 being the highest number of prisoners recorded in any official document as confined in Norman Cross on a specified day), was provided for by systematic fatigue parties from the prisoners themselves, one out of each mess of twelve being told off in regular rotation for the duty of sweeping, washing, scraping, and disinfecting the prisons; probably under this system the prison and courts were kept as clean as a man-of-war.  Each man on leaving his hammock, doubled it over so that both clews hung on one hook, leaving the floor space clear.

      The prisoners lived in the caserns day and night when the weather was too bad for them to live out of doors, but in fair weather they were compelled by the regulations to live outside “in the airing-court” from morning to dusk, except when they were summoned to the casern for their dinner.  The quadrangle is in Foulley’s description of his model always called “pré,” and probably there was more or less grass on the surface.

      Within the stockade fence which enclosed each quadrangle, the prisoners, about 1,800 in each square, were left to themselves, no soldiers, no sentries, no free men, except the turnkeys, whose lodges were, with the cooking-house, storehouses, &c., in a special court cut off from the airing-court by the same unclimbable stockade fence.  In each compound the prisoners formed a self-governing community, but all of them subject to the laws which applied to the whole body—viz. the Prison Regulations.

      These communities differed from every other community of human beings (except perhaps the inmates of monasteries) in being deprived of any participation in the two essential factors on which the bare existence of every animal race depends—viz. the provision of the actual necessaries of life, food and, in the case of man, clothing, for the preservation of its own generation; and the reproduction of its kind, to insure a future generation.  The necessaries of individual life were provided by the Government.

      The feeding of the prisoners and the troops in the barracks was an enormous tax on the resources of the country, greatly as it must have benefited the agriculturists, and purveyors of provisions of all kinds in the neighbourhood.  A paragraph in the Times of 14th August 1814, states that “about £300,000 a year was spent by the Government in Stilton, Yaxley, Peterborough, and neighbourhood in the necessary provision of stores,” and this was not an exaggerated statement, as a calculation based on the average number of the prisoners and garrison, the dietary, and the price of provisions, shows that bread and meat alone would cost more than half the amount named in the Times. 33

      The exact ration appears to have varied:

      The contract for victualling commenced on 12th April 1797, when the contractor was called upon to supply beef 1 lb., biscuit 1 lb., beer 2 quarts—as the daily ration of each prisoner.

      This must have been a temporary ration on the first opening of the prison.  In a later report the following is given as the scheme of victualling for a week:

      ^[70] When Greens are issued in lieu of Pease, one pound stripped of the outer leaves and fit for the copper shall be issued to each prisoner.

      Each prisoner shall receive two ounces of Soap per week.

      The ration for the greater period appears to have been beef ¾ lb., bread ½ lb., cabbage 1 lb., or a supply of pease; Wednesdays or Fridays, herrings or cod substituted for the meat, and a pound of potatoes.

      This change of the diet on Wednesday and Friday, made on account of the religion of the majority of the prisoners, and also as being more in accordance with their national diet, was recommended by the agent of the prison; but there was considerable delay, and some hardship to the prisoners, before the recommendation was granted.  The fish when it reached the prison must have been several days old, and was no doubt salted.  A new scale later on was fresh beef ½ lb., bread 1 lb., a quart of soup composed of vegetables and pease.  The terms of the contracts with those supplying the food were very stringent.  The conditions in the first contract at Norman Cross have already been given at p. 43 in chap. ii.

      When in November 1797 it was agreed by the French and British Governments that each Government should feed its own countrymen in the enemy’s prisons, and the French took over the feeding of the prisoners in Britain, they made only

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