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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‘Mr. Lovel, editor of the Statesman, a paper generally inclined in favour of the French Government, had published in March 19, 1812, a letter signed “Honestus”, in which the writer detailed with an exactness which showed he was thoroughly informed, the different sorts of robberies committed by the Transport Office and its agents upon the French prisoners, and summed them up. According to him these robberies amounted to several millions of francs: the budget of the cost of the prisoners being about 24,000,000 francs. Mr. Lovel was prosecuted. “Honestus” preserved his anonymity; the editor was, in consequence, condemned to two years imprisonment and a heavy fine. His defence was that the letter had been inserted without his knowledge and that he had had no idea who was the author. I have reason to believe, without being absolutely sure, that the writer was one Adams, an employé who had been dismissed from the Transport Office, a rascal all the better up in the details which he gave in that he had acted as interpreter of all the prisoners’ correspondence, the cause of his resentment being that he had been replaced by Sugden, even a greater rascal than he. I wrote to Mr. Brougham, Lovel’s Solicitor, and sent him a regular sworn statement that the prisoners did not receive one quarter the clothing nominally served to them, and for which probably the Government paid; that, estimating an outfit to be worth £1, this single item alone meant the robbery every eighteen months of about £1,800,000. My letter, as I expected, produced no effect; there was no desire to be enlightened on the affair, and the judicial proceedings were necessary to clear the Transport Office in the eyes of the French Government. Hence the reason for the severe punishment of Lovel, whose fine, I have been assured, was partly paid by the Transport Office, by a secret agreement.’