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 Crown Hulk, seen from the Stern. (After Louis Garneray.)

On another occasion when for counting purposes those on the Crown were transferred en masse on board the San Antonio, they returned to find that during their temporary absence R—— had actually, ‘as a measure of precaution,’ he said, destroyed all the tools and implements and books which the prisoners used in their poor little occupations and trades, and among them Garneray’s canvases, easels, brushes, and colours. The immediate result was a stupor of impotent rage; this gave way to open insubordination, insult, and such a universal paroxysm of indignation that even R—— was cowed, and actually made a show of leniency, offering terms of mediation which were scornfully rejected.

Garneray relates another boxing episode with great gusto. A certain Colonel S——, belonging to a well-known English family, came to visit Captain R—— accompanied by a colossal negro, gorgeously arrayed, called Little White, and a splendid Danish hound. His purpose was to match Little White against a French boxer for the entertainment of his fashionable friends ashore. At first sight there would seem to be very poor sport in the pitting of a well-fed, well-trained giant against even the fittest champion of a crowd of half-clad, half-starved, wholly untrained prisoners of war. Although the real object of the gallant Colonel was to show off his black pet, and to charm the beauty and fashion of Portsmouth with an exhibition of prowess, to prove that he was simply animated by a love of sport, he had the consent of R—— that the prisoner champion should be prepared in some way for the contest by extra feeding and so forth.