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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‘I cannot sufficiently express how much I owe to M. Haguelin for his ceaseless and powerful co-operation on the numerous occasions when he laboured to better the condition of his unfortunate compatriots. The conscientiousness which characterized all his acts makes him deserve well of his country.’

In 1816, Captain (afterwards Baron) Charles Dupin, of the French Corps of Naval Engineers, placed on record a very scathing report upon the treatment of his countrymen upon the hulks at Chatham. He wrote:

‘The Medway is covered with men-of-war, dismantled and lying in ordinary. Their fresh and brilliant painting contrasts with the hideous aspect of the old and smoky hulks, which seem the remains of vessels blackened by a recent fire. It is in these floating tombs that are buried alive prisoners of war—Danes, Swedes, Frenchmen, Americans, no matter. They are lodged on the lower deck, on the upper deck, and even on the orlop-deck.... Four hundred malefactors are the maximum of a ship appropriated to convicts. From eight hundred to twelve hundred is the ordinary number of prisoners of war, heaped together in a prison-ship of the same rate.’