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The Vengeance.
(After Louis Garneray.)
CHAPTER V
LIFE ON THE HULKS—(continued)
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I next give the remarks of Colonel Lebertre, who, having broken his parole by escaping from Alresford, was captured, and put on the Canada hulk at Chatham. This was in 1811. He complains bitterly that officers in the hulks were placed on a level with common prisoners, and even with negroes, and says that even the Brunswick, which was considered a better hulk than the others, swarmed with vermin, and that although cleanliness was strongly enjoined by the authorities, no allowance for soap was made, no leave given to bathe even in summer, and that fresh clothing was very rarely issued.
But most strongly does he condemn the conduct of the idle curious who would come off from the shore to see the prisoners on the hulks.
‘Les femmes même ont montré une indifférence vraiment choquante. On en a vu rester des heures entières les yeux fixés sur le Parc où se tiennent les prisonniers, sans que e spectacle de misère qui affecterait si vivement une Française ait fait couler une seule larme; le rire insultant était, au contraire, sur leurs lèvres. Les prisonniers n’ont connu qu’un seul exemple d’une femme qui s’évanouît à la vue du Parc.’