Читать книгу Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815. A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings онлайн

78 страница из 159

‘Beer:to be equal in quality to that issued on H.M.’s ships.Beef:to be good and wholesome fresh beef, and delivered in clean quarters.Cheese:to be good Gloucester or Wiltshire, or equal in quality.Pease:to be of the white sort and good boilers.Greens:to be stripped of outside leaves and fit for the copper.Beer:every 7 barrels to be brewed from 8 bushels of the strongest amber malt, and 6 or 7 lb. of good hops at £1 18s. per ton.Bread:to be equal in quality to that served on H.M.’s ships.’

As if there was really some wish on the part of the authorities to have things in order, the custom began in 1804 for the Transport Board to send to its prison agents and prison-ship commanders this notice:

‘I am directed by the Board to desire that you will immediately forward to this office by coach a loaf taken indiscriminately from the bread issued to the prisoners on the day you receive this letter.’

In so many cases was the specimen bread sent pronounced ‘not fit to be eaten’, that circulars were sent that all prisons and ships would receive a model loaf of the bread to be served out to prisoners, ‘made of whole wheaten meal actually and bona fide dressed through an eleven shilling cloth’.