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 Duke of Portland wrote thus to the Admiralty:

‘It is less necessary on this occasion to recall the circumstances which gave rise to the arrangement under which the two Governments agreed to provide for the wants of their respective subjects during their detention, as they have been submitted to Parliament and published to the world in refutation of the false and unwarrantable assertions brought forward by the French Government on this subject; but His Majesty cannot witness the termination of an arrangement founded on the fairest principles of Justice and Protection due by the Powers of War to their respective Prisoners, and proved by experience to be the best calculated to provide for their comfort, without protesting against the departure (on the part of the French Government) from an agreement entered into between the two countries, and which tended so materially to mitigate the Calamities of War. To prevent this effect as much as possible with respect to the British prisoners now in France, it is His Majesty’s pleasure that Capt. Cotes should be instructed to ascertain exactly the rate of daily allowance made to each man by the French Government, and that he should take care to supply at the expense of this country any difference that may exist between such allowance and what was issued by him under the late arrangement.