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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Waterhouse adds that ‘if an American, having lost all his money, wanted to borrow of a Frenchman under promise of repayment, the latter would say: “Ah mon ami! I am sorry, very sorry, indeed; it is la fortune de guerre. If you have lost your money you must win it back again; that is the fashion in my country—we no lend, that is not the fashion!”...

‘There were here some Danes as well as Dutchmen. It is curious to observe their different looks and manners.... Here we see the thick-skulled plodding Dane, making a wooden dish; or else some of the most ingenious making a clumsy ship; while others submitted to the dirtiest drudgery of the hulk, for money; and there we see a Dutchman, picking to pieces tarred ropes ... or else you see him lazily stowed away in some corner, with his pipe ... while here and there and every where, you find a lively singing Frenchman, working in hair, or carving out of a bone, a lady, a monkey, or the central figure of the crucifixion! Among the specimens of American ingenuity I most admired their ships, which they built from three to five feet long.... Had not the French proved themselves to be a very brave people, I should have doubted it by what I have observed of them on board the prison-ship. They would scold, quarrel and fight, by slapping each other’s chops with the flat hand, and cry like so many girls.... Perhaps such a man as Napoleon Bonaparte could make any nation courageous.’