Читать книгу Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815. A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings онлайн

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The alimentation of the prisoners, humane and ample as it looks on paper, seems to have been a gross sham. Not only did the contractors cheat in quality and quantity, but what with forfeitures on account of breaches of discipline, and observance of the law imposed by the prisoners on themselves, that, deductions or no deductions, no man should have a larger ration than another, and contributions to men planning to escape, it was impossible for all to touch full rations.

The prisoners elected their own cooks, and nominally a committee of fifteen prisoners was allowed to attend at the distribution to see that quality and quantity were just, but the guards rarely allowed them to do so. Six men formed a mess; no spoons, knives or forks were supplied, merely bowls and pannikins. The fish supplied on ‘maigre’ days—Wednesdays and Fridays—was usually uneatable, and the prisoners often sold the herrings at a penny each to the purveyors, who kept them for redistribution, so that it was said that some herrings had done duty for ten years! With the money thus made the prisoners bought butter or cheese. The cod they re-cooked; the bread was filthy and hard. Complaints were useless, and the result was constant hunger.