The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816

When in November 1797 it was agreed by the French and British Governments that each Government should feed its own countrymen in the enemy’s prisons, and the French took over the feeding of the prisoners in Britain, they made only a slight change in the ration to suit it more to French cookery.  The daily allowance per head being, beer 1 qt., beef 8 oz., bread 26 oz., cheese 2 oz. or good salt butter ⅓ oz., pease ½ pt., fresh vegetables 1½ lb.  The French also allowed each prisoner ½ lb. of white soap and ¾ lb. of tobacco in leaf, per month.

The diet of hospital patients was on a very liberal scale: 1 pt. of tea morning and evening, 16 oz. of white bread, 16 oz. of beef or mutton, 1 pt. of broth, 16 oz. of greens or good sound potatoes, and 2 qts. of malt beer, and, in the case of patients requiring it, beef, fish, fowls, veal, lamb, and eggs might be substituted.

The diet was investigated by a commissioner sent round to the various prisons, who reported that, “although the amount of meat would seem scarcely enough to an Englishman, the French, by their skill in cookery, made such an excellent soup or broth out of it as to afford ample support for men living without labour, such as our labouring poor rarely have at any time, but certainly not during the present scarcity.”  The same commissioner in July 1797 recommended that an alteration should be made in the contracts, so as to insure early delivery, “as the lateness prevents the cookery of the meat as the French desire, which is by boiling it down for four or five hours with a strong and excellent broth, after which the meat is good for but little, and but little regarded by the prisoners.” 34

The food was prepared by cooks chosen from the prisoners themselves, and paid by the Government.  To insure the good quality and proper quantity of the goods supplied, and to eliminate the possibility of the storekeepers being bribed by the contractors to pass inferior goods, the prisoners of each block were ordered by Clause 8 of the Prison Rules to appoint delegates to attend when the food and other goods were delivered, and to see that they were up to the standard specified in the contract.

There were in the various prisons occasional complaints, and if they were justified the contractors were punished.  In one instance the defaulting contractor at Plymouth was fined £300 and imprisoned for six months in the County Gaol.  Beer at one time was supplied to the prisoners by the Government, and when this allowance ceased, it could, under certain regulations, be obtained on payment.  This beer was of a very light and cheap quality, as attested by the books of the Oundle Brewery, but half a gallon a day, given in the first ration of which we have found a note, is so large an allowance, even for those bibulous days, that it suggests an error in the memorandum.  Tea and coffee in those days were the luxuries of the well-to-do only, and were not for prisoners or for our own poorer countrymen and women.  There was no tea or coffee.

There can be no doubt that every possible precaution was taken to insure that the food supplied by the Government was good, and sufficient to maintain an average man in good health, and in the market held in the enclosed space at the east gate, to which the prisoners had access, those who had money could buy additional food and luxuries.  But although beyond doubt the allowance of food was sufficient for an average man, there must have been in those twenty years thousands of men with hearty appetites who finished their ration hungry and dissatisfied—and the sequel will show that there were others who actually died of starvation, owing to their own vices.

Each prisoner was allowed a straw palliasse, a bolster, and a blanket or coverlet, the straw being changed as often as was necessary.

The British Government never withdrew its contention that it was the duty of each nation to provide clothing for its subjects in captivity in the country of its enemy, and maintained that this had been the practice of France and England in all previous wars, even in that in which they were engaged up to the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, only ten years before the outbreak in 1793 of the war under discussion; but as an act of humanity, when the French obstinately declined to discharge this duty, the Government clothed a certain number of the naked in a yellow suit, a grey or yellow cap, a yellow jacket, a red waistcoat, yellow trousers, a neckerchief, two shirts, two pairs of stockings, and one pair of shoes.

In M. Foulley’s model the greater number of the prisoners are represented as clad in this uniform, the conspicuous colours of which were selected to facilitate the detection of an escaped prisoner.  In the first year of the occupation of Norman Cross an order was issued to the storekeeper to supply such prisoners as were destitute of clothing with the articles enumerated above.

There is every reason to believe that the provisions for the maintenance of the prisoners were carried out with the utmost care and fidelity in Norman Cross and all other prisons, but the complaints of the prisoners gave rise to such prolonged controversy and serious disagreement between the Governments of France and England, that a review of the discussion finds an appropriate place here.  The complaints were not confined to one side only, but there is ample documentary evidence that the accusations of the French were greatly exaggerated or absolutely without foundation.  Their hatred of the enemy made the captives suspicious, and illness from natural causes was attributed to cruelty and ill-treatment. 35

The British Government, according to Mr. Dundas, Secretary of State, on 6th October 1797, attributed many of the complaints to passion, prejudice, and animosity (quotation by M. Niou in his letter to Mr. Dundas, 15th February 1799), 36 and it is certain that the French Government would not object to the fact that the statements made by the French generals, commissaries, and others, whether the effect was intended or not, undoubtedly increased the anger of their nation against the English, and thus infused greater fighting energy into their troops.  The words used by Buonaparte, in his address to his Army on the eve of Waterloo, to stimulate his troops, have already been quoted.  As to his reference to the hulks, we must bear in mind that, except under the pressure of the earlier period of the war, when the prison accommodation was insufficient, and again later on occasions when the prisoners had accumulated to a larger number than could be accommodated on land, even though Dartmoor, Perth, and other smaller prisons had been built, the hulks were the place of imprisonment for the criminal prisoners of war only, and that a century since there was no place of confinement for criminals in which the conditions could entail anything but misery.

Of the worst miseries endured by the prisoners at Norman Cross and other depots, the real sources were the vices of the unfortunate men themselves, especially gambling and usury, 37 and to the obstinacy of the French Government in their determination to provide no clothing and their neglect to fulfil their promises.  The evidence that this accusation of neglect by the French is well founded, is furnished by M. Charretie, the agent or commissary appointed by the French Directory to look after the prisoners in England, who on the 19th November 1797, in a letter to the Minister of Marine at Paris, after describing the pitiable condition of many of the prisoners, who were half-naked for the want of clothes, proceeds:

“Consolation, Citizen Minister, might be felt by the unfortunate prisoners, if their want and misery had not reached their height, and if assistance could reach them in time to give foundation to their hopes, but, Citizen Minister, after all that I have said to them, after all that I have had the honour of writing to you, concerning their horrible situation and that in which I am myself placed, without resources, at the mercy of a crowd of creditors, scarcely able to find the means of providing for my own subsistence, what would you have me say more when I see you are deceived with respect to the Measures you take in regard to them?

“Five thousand livres have long since been announced to me by your office—you now make mention of sixty thousand livres, but I have no intelligence of the arrival of the first farthing of either of these sums.  If promises remain unexecuted with respect to such sacred and necessary objects in a service which I can no longer continue, when shall I see those realised which relate to the providing of Funds for the clothing of Prisoners,” . . . “and if of about 9,000 confined at Norman Cross near 3,000, sick for want of clothing and an increase of diet, are already on the eve of perishing, what will be the case some time hence?  And upon whom will the responsibility fall for so many thousand victims?  My correspondence will justify me in the eyes of my country.  However expeditious you may be, Citizen Minister, all you can hope for is to save the remainder, whom strength of constitution may have kept longer alive—what then would be the case if the English Government should order the measure of driving them all [this must refer to the officers on parole—T. J. W.] into horrible prisons, and of reducing the allowance to half rations, to be put into execution.” 38

The Republic had taken no notice of the propositions of Britain made on the 6th October 1797, “that the prisoners should be furnished in the countries where they were detained with clothing, subsistence, and medicines at the expense of the Government to which they belonged.”  The British Government threatened, in order to compel a reply, that they must put the prisoners on a reduced allowance on 1st December 1797.

M. Charretie’s letter may have assisted the French Government to sanction the proposal of the British Minister.  What it certainly did, by the statement it contained as to the proportion of sick among, and the general condition of, the Norman Cross prisoners, was to enrage the French against the English.  The British Government at once took steps to prove the statement false.  On the 15th December 1797, Mr. James Perrot, the agent for prisoners of war at Norman Cross, Dr. Higgins, the physician, Mr. James Magennis, surgeon, and Messieurs Chatelin and Savary, the French assistant surgeons, deposed on oath that at no time since the opening of the prison in April had there been more than 5,170 in the prison at one time, that up to that day fifty-nine only had died in the hospital, and that on the 19th November (the date of this letter in which M. Charretie said that out of about 9,000 prisoners near 3,000 were sick) there were only 194 in hospital, in which number were included twenty-four nurses; the doctors in addition certified that, “The prisoners are visited every morning by the chief surgeons or their assistants, and that, whether their disorders are slight or violent, they are admitted into the hospital,” and the French assistant surgeons (themselves prisoners of war) added, “While there, they are treated with humanity and attention, and provided with everything necessary for the re-establishment of their health.” 39

In evidence before a commission held on the 2nd April 1798, M. Charretie explained that he had received the information inserted in his letter to the Minister of Marine from prisoners confined at Norman Cross; that he had intended communicating with the Transport Board, but that soon after writing to the Minister he had reason to alter his opinion; that he had informed the French Government that he thought he had been too hasty, especially as the Transport Board provided him with lists giving him the number of prisoners in each prison, but, as fresh prisoners were arriving, he thought the number might have increased from 5,000 to 9,000.  This is a fair sample of the French complaints, and of how little foundation was found for most of them when they were investigated.  The mortality at Norman Cross was exceptionally high during its first occupation, but the majority of the earliest prisoners were those who had been removed from the prisons, the overcrowded and consequent unhealthy condition of which gave rise to the hurried building of Norman Cross; they were therefore specially liable to disease, and unfit to withstand its ravages.  The arrangement for maintaining the prisoners, from the outbreak of the war in 1793 to November 1797, was that which had been in force in previous wars between the two nations—viz. that each nation should provide the captives detained in its prisons with food sufficient to maintain life and health, while it clothed its own countrymen in the enemy’s prisons.

To put an end to the complaints and the recriminations continually renewed on both sides, relative to the treatment of the prisoners, our Government had in October 1797 proposed the fresh arrangement “that the Prisoners should be furnished, in the Country where they were detained, with clothing, subsistence, and medicines at the expense of the Government to which they belonged.”  The French Government took no notice of this communication, not even acknowledging its receipt, and to enforce its attention to this and other matters connected with the exchange of prisoners (especially of Sir Sidney Smith), the British Government threatened to confine all the officers out on parole, and to reduce the prison ration, which was at that time equal to that of a British soldier, to half—viz. 1 lb. bread, ½ lb. beef, ¼ lb. pease, and ½ lb. cabbage.

This threat, aided possibly by M. Charretie’s letter—the piteous appeal of a servant of the Republic thwarted in the execution of his duties by the neglect of the Directory to fulfil its promises and to discharge its responsibilities—had effect.  The new arrangement was adopted, each nation undertaking to provide food, medicine, and other necessaries for its own countrymen.  While this arrangement lasted, neither combatant could use the weapon, which Britain had threatened to employ, the reduction of the ration of those of the enemy who were captive in its prisons.  M. Gallois, who succeeded M. Charretie as commissary, brought over M. Nettement, to whom the special task of providing the means of subsistence for the prisoners was entrusted, the expense being borne by France.

The contention that the complaints made by the French as to the food, etc., supplied under the old system, were mostly unfounded, is supported by the fact that M. Nettement, except in one instance, employed the same sub-agents, and, in general, the same contractors, who had been serving the British, and that only slight modifications in the dietary were made to adapt it more to French methods of cooking.  The new arrangement lasted only two years; it was terminated abruptly by an Arrêté of the French Consuls, dated 29th November 1799 (le Frimaire l’an 8 de la République une et Indivisible).  A copy of this edict was sent by M. Niou (the Commissary in England at that date) to Mr. Dundas, Secretary of State for War, with a letter in which he stated that among other reasons why the Consuls did not in any manner feel called upon to continue to observe the arrangement, was the fact “that it was not founded on any authentic stipulation; that the Cartel of Exchange, signed nearly ten months afterwards, took not the least notice of it,” etc.

In consequence of this correspondence on the 15th December 1799, the Duke of Portland, acting in the absence of Mr. Secretary Dundas, communicated to the Admiralty the King’s wishes as to future arrangements.  After protesting against the “departure (on the part of the French Government) from the agreement entered into between the two countries, and which tended so materially to mitigate the calamities of war,” he directed, as to the British prisoners in France, that Captain Cotes, the British agent in Paris, should ascertain exactly the daily allowance made to each man by the French Government, and that he should, at the expense of the British Government, make up any deficiency existing between that allowance and the ration supplied by the British Government during the years 1798 and 1799.  At the same time the Minister directed the Transport Commissioners to supply the French prisoners in Britain, from the date when the French agent ceased to supply them, with the same rations of provisions as were granted before the arrangement of December 1797, and he adds:

“As no mention is made of Clothing or other necessaries in Captain Cotes’ letter, I think it right to add that the Commissioners of Transports and for taking care of Prisoners of War are on no account to furnish any to the French Prisoners, as this charge has at all times been supported by the French Government.”

From this time to the termination of the war the arrangement as to the feeding of the prisoners remained the same, but a terrible source of misery to the French prisoners at Norman Cross, and to other French prisoners of war in England, was the firm refusal of the French Government to agree to the clause in Lord Portland’s letter, referring to the clothing of the prisoners.

In another Edict, dated March 1800, signed by Buonaparte as First Consul, Article 1, is “The Ministers of War and of the Marine shall ensure by every possible means, subsistence and clothing to the Russian, Austrian and English Prisoners of War”—“they shall take care that they are treated with all Attention and Indulgence consistent with public safety.” 40  The British Government declined to accept the arrangement implied in this Arrêté, and adhered to what had been the uniform custom in the wars between France and England, and they continued to supply, through their agent in France, all clothing and similar necessaries to the British captives, and even to the Russians who had been serving with them in Holland; while the French, although they were not called upon to clothe the British, refused, notwithstanding the miserable state to which their countrymen in the prisons were reduced by the want of it, to supply them with any clothing.

That the firmness of the two Governments led to terrible suffering in the British prisons cannot be doubted—a suffering which was not shared by the British in France, who were regularly clothed by the agent of their own Government; and it has been already stated that at certain periods of the struggle, including the latter part of 1797, the British Government did provide, in the last extremity, clothing for the neglected subjects of their enemy, protesting, that they did this only as an act of humanity, and not as a duty.

In looking for the apparent unwillingness of the French to meet the British on equal terms, we must remember certain differences in the great principles in which the two nations conducted war.  Alison, commenting on the Peninsular Campaign, says:

“The British, according to the established mode of civilised warfare, at least in modern times, maintained themselves chiefly from magazines in their rear; and when they were obliged to depend upon the supplies of the provinces where the war was carried on, they paid for their food as they would have done in this country.” 41

The French, on the other hand, by reverting to the old Roman system, of making war maintain war, not only felt no additional burden, but experienced the most sensible relief by their armies carrying on hostilities in foreign states.  From the moment that his forces entered a hostile territory, it was a fundamental principle of Napoleon’s that they should “draw nothing from the French Exchequer.”  This principle applied to the case of the prisoners of war would certainly never tolerate that France should follow the mode of civilised warfare, at least in modern times, and should maintain her soldiers (varying during the war from 20,000 to 67,000) incarcerated in Britain if, by starving them or leaving them naked, she could thrust the burden of doing so on to the British nation.

The great disparity between the number of the French prisoners in Britain and the British in France must have strongly influenced the First Consul to issue the Edict, which cancelled without ceremony the arrangement in force for the two years 1798–99.  A return made in December 1799, when our Government again took over the victualling of the French prisoners, showed their number to be 25,646, of whom 10,128 were at Portsmouth, 7,477 at Forton (Portsmouth), 3,038 at Norman Cross, and the rest in Liverpool, Chatham, Stapleton, Edinburgh, and Yarmouth.  The number of English in France was about 5,000.  The French therefore, during 1798 and 1799, were feeding and clothing 25,646, while the British had to feed and clothe only a little over 5,000.  This disparity in the number of the captives of France and England lasted throughout the war, and, as will be seen, interfered seriously with the exchange of prisoners.  With the resumption of the old arrangement, there came again the old complaints; that those of the British were in some degree justified, is clear from words of explanation used by the French Commissary, “If the situation of the Finances of the Republic did not allow of the prisoners receiving the whole of what the law allowed them, it was not the less true that they experienced in that respect the benefits of the solicitude of the Government.”  The words in italics practically concede the fact that the British prisoners in France were not receiving what the law allowed them.

The French never lost sight of the hope, by one means or another, of getting the prisoners back into the fighting ranks, and when in answer to a complaint of the French, M. Otto the commissary had been told “That the people here are not better fed than the prisoners,” his retort in writing to the Transport Commissioners was, “If the scarcity of Provisions is so notorious that the Government [British], notwithstanding its solicitude, cannot relieve the wants of its own people, why should it unnecessarily increase the consumption by feeding more than 22,000 prisoners?”  M. Otto’s solution of all the difficulties was, send us back our soldiers and sailors, and cease to burden yourselves with them.

It may be difficult, even after this long lapse of time, for either a Frenchman or an Englishman to make an impartial summing up of a controversy carried on in hot blood and generating bad feeling which lasted long after Waterloo and the return of the Bourbons.  The British did not shrink from publishing at the time all the facts and correspondence relating to these controversial matters, thus enabling their contemporaries of all nationalities to come to a right judgment and, fortunately for us, if exaggerated and even lying accusations came from French sources, their exaggeration and falsehood could usually be proved by French witnesses.

The piteous letter of M. Charretie has been already quoted as evidence of where the fault really lay in November 1797.

In 1815 a work was published in Paris called L’Angleterre vue à Londres et dans ses Provinces, pendant un séjour de dix années.  An English translation was published in America in 1818, to the title being added, “six of them as a prisoner of war.”  The author was René Martin Pillet, who, according to his account, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Vimiera, 1808.  He was confined at Norman Cross and Bishop’s Waltham, and at Chatham on the Brunswick hulk.  Space forbids an examination of all his statements regarding England and English society; his account of the treatment of prisoners of war alone concerns us.  The nature of his statements can best be understood by the replies made.  There was a pamphlet by some one hailing from Warrington, issued in 1816, with the title A Defence of our National Character and our Fair Countrywomen.  One paragraph must suffice:

“It has been accurately calculated that not more than one in ten of the French prisoners died during the last two wars: if therefore 150,000, as you state, died in the prison-ships by torture or otherwise, the amount of French prisoners in these ships must have been 1,500,000, to contain which it would have required 2,000 ships of the line, but as not half of the number of prisoners were confined in ships, we must have taken during the last twenty years double that number, namely, 3,000,000!  Any further comment would be idle and superfluous.” (P. 16.)

A detailed examination of Pillet’s book was published in 1816, entitled, Tableau de la Grande-Bretagne.  The author was Jean Sarrazin, a very remarkable man.  He was born in 1770, of humble parentage, and served as a private soldier in the ranks of the French army, but rose very rapidly to high rank, being General of Brigade in the expedition to Ireland in 1798, where he was taken prisoner, and, to use his own words, he was treated as a prisoner of war “with the highest distinction,” and was exchanged for the English Major-General Sir Harry Burral, an ensign, one sergeant, and five privates.  He married an English lady, a native of Exeter, who returned with him to France.