Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

The French officers had shown conspicuous indifference about keeping their parole. Between 1809 and 1812 five hundred officers violated their paroles and effected their escapes. A good many American officers were equally unscrupulous.

We have the journal of an American prisoner, Charles Andrews, who was one of the first taken and who remained in durance till the end of the war. His statement was countersigned as a genuine record of facts by fourteen captains, two lieutenants, one doctor, and forty-five others who had shared the long captivity with him.

There were other American prisoners at Chatham and at Portsmouth, but with them we have no concern.

Every prisoner sent to one of the two ships for their accommodation in the Hamoaze was given a coarse hammock with a mattress, the latter with from 3 to 4 lb. of chopped rags and flock in it, “one coarse and sleazy blanket,” and these were to last for the twelvemonth. To each man was allowed 11⁄2 lb. of poor coarse bread, 1⁄2 lb. beef including bone, 1⁄3 oz. of salt, and one or two turnips per man. These rations were for five days in the week: the other two were fish days, 1 lb. salt haddock, 1 lb. potatoes and bread as before, then constituted the fare.

From the summer of 1812 to April, 1813, there were seven hundred prisoners on board these vessels at Plymouth. They suffered from want of many conveniences and comforts. They had no change of clothes and linen, some had their garments completely worn out; they were not provided with combs and brushes, tea, coffee, boots and shoes. The American Government had appointed a Mr. Ruben G. Beasley as its agent in England to see to the comfort of the prisoners, and he was furnished with money by that Government for the supply of all that was needful to make the captivity endurable by those who had to endure it. But he pocketed the money and only doled out some to Jews who undertook to supply certain articles to the prisoners, few and bad, short in quantity and bad in quality. The American prisoners wrote repeatedly in complaint to Mr. Beasley, pointing out that they were half-starved, in bad health, shoeless, nearly naked. But he did not even trouble to answer the letters and made no inquiry as to the real condition of the complainants. Added to their discomforts was the fact that they were devoured by vermin, and had no means of keeping themselves clean.

On 2 April, 1813, an order was issued for the American prisoners to be transferred to Princetown, with their hammocks, baggage, etc., and on that day 250 men were so dispatched. “Orders were given to march at 10.30 in the morning, with a positive injunction that no prisoners should step out of or leave the ranks, on pain of instant death. Thus we marched, surrounded by a strong guard, through a heavy rain, over a bad road, with only our usual and scanty allowance of bread and fish. We were allowed to stop only once during the march of seventeen miles.

“We arrived at Dartmoor late in the afterpart of the day, and found the ground covered with snow.

“The prison of Dartmoor is situated on the east side of one of the highest and most barren mountains in England, and is surrounded on all sides as far as the eye can see by the gloomy features of a black moor, uncultivated and uninhabited, except by one or two miserable cottages, just discernible in an eastern view, the tenants of which live by cutting turf on the moor and selling it at the prison. The place is deprived of everything that is pleasant or agreeable, and is productive of nothing but human woe and misery. Even riches, pleasant friends, and liberty could not make it agreeable. It is situated seven miles from the little village of Tavistock.

“On entering this depôt of living death, we first passed through the gates and found ourselves surrounded by two huge circular walls, the outer one of which is two miles in circumference and 16 ft. high. The inner wall is distant from the outer 30 ft., around which is a chain of bells suspended by a wire, so that the least touch sets every bell in motion and alarms the garrison. On the top of the inner wall is placed a guard at the distance of every 20 ft. Between the two walls and over the intermediate space are also stationed guards.

“Thus much for the courtyard of this seminary of misery. We shall next proceed to give a description of the gloomy mansion itself. On entering we find seven prisons enclosed in the following manner, and situated quite within all the walls before-mentioned. Prisons 1, 2, and 3 are built of hard, rough, unhewn stone three storeys high, 180 ft. long and 40 ft. broad; each of these prisons on an average can contain 1500 prisoners. There is also attached to the yard a house of correction, called a cachot; this is built of large stone, arched above and floored with the same. Into this cold, dark, and damp cell, the unhappy prisoner is cast if he offend against the rules of the prison, either willingly or inadvertently, and often on the most frivolous pretext. There he must remain for many days, and often weeks, on two-thirds the usual allowance of food, without a hammock or a bed, and nothing but a stone pavement for his chair and bed. These three prisons are situated on the north side of the enclosure, as is also the cachot, and separated from the other prisons by a wall. Next to these is another, No. 4, equally as large as any of the others, this is separated from all the rest by a wall on each side, and stands in the centre of the circular walls.

“Adjoining this are situated prisons Nos. 5, 6, and 7, along the south side of the circular wall.”

The prisons had been erected at a cost of £130,000 in 1809, and consisted of five radiating blocks of buildings, like spokes of a wheel, and two other blocks nearer the entrance. These two constituted, one the hospital, the other the residence of the petty officers. A segment cut off from the inner circle contained the governor’s house and the other buildings necessary for the civil establishment; and into this part of the ground the country people were admitted and a daily market was held, where vegetables and such other things as the prisoners might care to purchase were provided, in part by the neighbouring farmers, but mainly by Jew pedlars. The barracks for the troops was a detached building at a little distance.

“We entered the prisons,” continues Mr. Andrews, “but here the heart of every American was appalled. Amazement struck the unhappy victim, for as he cast his hopeless eyes around, he saw the water constantly dripping from the cold stone walls on every side, which kept the floor, made of stone, constantly wet and cold as ice. During the month of April there was scarce a day but more or less rain fell.”

When the Americans arrived they found the prison already packed with 8000 French captives. These were of various classes and characters. Among these latter “the Seigneurs” were such as received remittances from their friends, or had money of their own, and were able to draw cheques on Plymouth bankers, and these bought such luxuries as they would in the market of the outer court. Those who worked at trades were known as labourers, and they were employed in building the chaplain’s house, etc. The inn, “The Plume of Feathers,” the sole building in Princetown which is not an architectural monstrosity, was erected by these French “labourers.” They also erected the cottage at Okery Bridge, which was an extremely picturesque edifice till its balconies and galleries were removed. But there were others, the prisoners who would do no work, who gambled for whatever they possessed, and quarrelled, fought, and were intolerable nuisances. These would gamble the very clothes off their backs, and were reduced to blankets with a hole cut in the middle, through which they thrust their heads. As they were denied knives, when they wanted to fight they attached one blade of a pair of scissors to a stick, and with these formidable weapons, each armed with one portion of the scissors, they were able to deal each other serious wounds.

To the great annoyance of the American prisoners they were thrust into No. 4 ward, into which had been relegated the good-for-naught class of the French. But here they did not live as brothers, for they drew a sharp line of demarcation between themselves, who were of white blood, and their negro brethren, fellow seamen captured with them under the same banner.

At the end of May the Americans appealed respectfully, but urgently, to the U.S. agent, Mr. R. G. Beasley, complaining that the allowance made them was scanty, that the whole day’s pittance was scarcely enough for one meal, that for the greater part the American prisoners were in a state of nakedness, and that a good many of them to escape from a condition that was intolerable had volunteered to join the King’s service.

“To these petitions, complaints, and remonstrances, Mr. Beasley returned no answer, nor took any notice of them whatever.”

On 28 May, 250 more American prisoners arrived, raising the total to 500. Again they appealed to the agent of the U.S.A., informing him that they were defrauded of half their rations by the contractor, that small-pox was raging among them, and that they were swarming with vermin.

“To these complaints he paid no more attention, neither came to see whether they were true or false, nor sent any answer either written or verbal.”

On 16 September, 1813, to the immense relief of the Americans, all the French prisoners to the number of 436, who had herded with them in No. 4, were turned out and placed elsewhere. Many of these had been in prison for ten years, and were in a condition of perfect nudity, and slept on the bare floor without any rug under them or covering over them. This endured for so many years had caused their skin to acquire a hardness like that of the stones. But this condition was entirely due to the passion for gambling. Whenever they were supplied with clothes, instead of putting them on, they started playing and staking every several article of clothing given them, till they had lost all. They had often been supplied by their countrymen with hammocks, beds, and garments, but they no sooner were in possession of them than they went to the grating, sold them to the Jews outside, and gambled the whole proceeds away. Very different was it in the No. 6 ward, occupied by the industrious French prisoners. “Here is carried on almost every branch of the mechanic arts. They resemble little towns; every man has his separate occupation, his workshop, his store-house, his coffee-house, his eating-house, etc.; he is employed in some business or other. There are many gentlemen of large fortune there who, having broken their parole, were committed to close confinement. These were able to support themselves in a genteel manner; though they were prisoners, they drew upon their bankers in other parts of Europe. They manufactured shoes, hats, hair, and bone-work. They likewise, at one time, carried on a very lucrative branch of manufacture; they forged notes on the Bank of England to the amount of £150,000 sterling, and made so perfect imitations that the cashier could not discover the forgery. They also carried on the coining of silver, to a very considerable advantage. They had men constantly employed outside the yard, to collect all the Spanish dollars they could, and bring them into the prison. Out of every dollar they made eight smooth English shillings, equally as heavy, and passed as well as any in the kingdom.”

With regard to the forgery of bank-notes, something may be added. The material for manufacturing the notes was imported from without, and the Jews were largely involved in the matter. The method pursued was revealed in 1809, before the American prisoners arrived, when two French captives, Charles Guiller and Victor Collas, who were berthed on board El Firm, in the Hamoaze, made overtures for their transfer to the Généreux, from which they could direct their operations with more freedom. They opened negotiations with the captain’s clerk of the Généreux, candidly telling him that their object was the forgery and passing of £5 bank-notes, and promising him a share of the spoils. The man affected to entertain the proposition, but communicated the whole to his captain, secured the transfers as desired, and supplied the prisoners with all the necessary facilities. By means of fine hair pencils and Indian ink they forged to a point of astonishing perfection notes on the Bank of England, the Naval and Commercial Bank, and Okehampton one-pound notes. To compensate for the deficiency of the official perforated stamps, they set to work with smooth halfpennies and sail-maker’s needles, and thus imitation was carried to perfection. When the prisoners had made sufficient progress, their trunk was seized with the evidences of their guilt, and they were restored to closer supervision, and visited with the usual corporal punishment.40

On the whole, the French prisoners, if they conducted themselves well and were industrious, did not suffer severely. A book was published in Paris by Le Catel, in 1847, entitled La Prison de Dartmoor, un récit historique des Infortunes et Evasions des Prisonniers Français en Angleterre, sous l’Empire, depuis 1809 jusqu’en 1814, but it is a romance, the “facts” drawn out of the lively imagination of the author. The only prisoners who really suffered were those who brought their sufferings on themselves. As Andrews says of the French, “they drink, sing, and dance, talk of their women in the day time and dream of them at night. But the Americans have not that careless volatility, like the cockle in the fable, to sing and dance when the house is on fire over them.”

In December, 1813, the cold was severe. Captain Cotgrave was governor of the prison, and he ordered the prisoners to turn out every morning at nine o’clock and stand in the yard till the guards had counted them, and this usually took over an hour. Many of the prisoners were without stockings, and some without shoes, and many without jackets. They cut up their blankets to wrap round their feet and legs, that they might be able to endure the cold and snow which lay thick whilst they were undergoing this ceremony. They complained to Captain Cotgrave, but he replied that he was acting upon orders. Several of the naked men, chilled and half starved, fell insensible before him and the guards and turnkeys, and had to be removed to the hospital; but as soon as they were brought round they were sent back to their prison.

On 22 December, 1813, Captain Cotgrave was superseded and Captain Thomas G. Shortland was appointed governor. At first he seemed to be an improvement on the former, who had been a harsh martinet; he stopped the roll-call and required the surgeon to visit the prisons daily. But the favourable impression he caused at first did not last long.

Hitherto, for some unaccountable reason, the licence to trade with the country-folk and pedlars in the outer court which had all along been allowed to the French had been denied to the American prisoners, but on 18 March, 1814, this restriction was withdrawn, and the American prisoners were allowed greater privileges. They now began to receive money from home, to make shoes of list, to plait straw, make bracelets, and carve meat-bones. The French had been allowed to have plays with a stage and scenery once a month, good music and appropriate comic and tragic costumes. They had also had their schools for teaching the arts and sciences, dancing, fencing, and fiddling. But all these privileges had been denied to the Americans occupying No. 4. Now these privileges were extended to them, and they considered that this indulgence was due to Captain Shortland. Indeed, Shortland seems to have been on the whole more humane than Cotgrave, and the final disaster which has blackened his name was due to another cause, his moral and mental incapacity to fill the position into which he had been thrust.

In 1814, there were 1500 prisoners of American nationality in No. 4. They despaired of freedom, and were rendered restless by the French prisoners evacuating the prison after the abdication of Napoleon, 4 April, 1814, and the end of the European war. Then there were 3500 American prisoners moved into No. 5, and by 31 December in that year the number amounted to 5326, mainly in the buildings 4 and 5.

Those in No. 4 now resolved on making an attempt at escape, and they began to excavate a tunnel that was to run 250 feet and enable those in the ward to escape, not only out of the block, but also beyond the outer wall. American blacksmiths among the prisoners furnished the necessary tools, and correspondence was maintained with American agents outside, and a fleet of friendly fishing boats was hovering about in Tor Bay to receive the prisoners. But they were betrayed by one of their number, who led the Governor to the excavation when it had been carried as far as sixty feet. It was at once choked up with masses of granite and cement, and those who had been engaged on it were put on short commons. This was in the summer of 1814. The attempt completely upset Governor Shortland’s nerves.

On 24 December, 1814, peace between England and America was signed at Ghent, and the news speedily reached England, but did not arrive in the United States, and was not published there till 11 February, 1815. By 1 January, 1815, the American prisoners in Princetown were aware that the time of their incarceration was drawing to an end. Indeed, they might have all been discharged, but that the Government waited for the United States Government to send men-of-war or other vessels to convey the prisoners to America. A misunderstanding prevented their immediate release. The American Government considered it the duty of the British Government to reconvey the prisoners to the United States, and undertook in return to reconvey the British prisoners detained in their prisons to Bermuda or Halifax. Lord Castlereagh objected to this as an unfair and unreasonable distribution of expenses, for Great Britain would be put to the expense, not only of conveying the American prisoners to the States, but also of bringing home from Bermuda and Halifax all the prisoners of her own nationality.

At the end of March, 1815, three months after peace had been concluded, there were 5693 prisoners within the walls of Princetown Gaol. That these were restless and impatient at their detention is not to be wondered at. But their chief irritation was against Mr. Beasley, the agent, whom they considered as dilatory, and who they supposed ought at once to have provided for their repatriation, they being unaware of the contention between the two Governments as to the cost of this repatriation. They were further incensed against him because, according to the testimony of John C. Clement, one of them, made in Philadelphia: “During our confinement, the American agent (Beasley) did not give us, say from 2 April, 1813, to March, 1814, the 6s. 8d. sterling per month, as well as the suit of clothes allowed us annually by our Government, which money and clothes the prisoners have never received; and when I, with two hundred and fifty others, were released from prison, there was likewise a shirt, a pair of shoes, and 6s. 8d. due to us, which we never received. The prisoners had applied to Beasley repeatedly for what was due to them, but received no satisfaction. He never visited the prisons but once during the two years and upwards I was there.” On 4 April the Governor went to Plymouth; and orders had been left that the prisoners were to be given biscuit in place of bread. This they resented, and refused the biscuit. Towards evening they broke out in mutiny and threatened to sack the stores unless they were at once provided with bread, but this was done and they were satisfied.

A messenger was at once dispatched to Plymouth to announce to Shortland that the captives were in rebellion. When he received the news he rushed off to the Citadel and begged for a reinforcement of two hundred men to be added to the five hundred Somersetshire and Derbyshire militiamen already at Princetown. Accordingly these soldiers, under Major Joliffe, were accorded him. He returned with them to Princetown, and found that the rioters had peacefully retired to their beds after the outbreak and promised to give no more trouble.

Governor Shortland was somewhat irritated against the Americans on account of a practical joke they had recently played on him. One evening they had attached a jacket and a pair of breeches to a string, and had let them down over the outer wall. A turnkey saw what he supposed to be a prisoner in the act of making his escape, and communicated with the Governor, who called out some warders, marched to within some yards of the spot, and ordered a volley to be fired at the supposed escaping prisoner. As he did not fall, a little nearer inspection revealed that an April fool had been made of him.

On 6 April, at 6 p.m., Captain Shortland was informed that a hole had been discovered in the wall that separated the yard No. 6 from No. 7. This hole, says Andrews, had been made that same afternoon by some of the Americans out of mere mischief, and without any design of effecting their escape. Indeed, why should they attempt it, when their release was at hand, and they were in daily expectation of receiving their cartels of discharge?

Other prisoners state that the hole was made by some of the boys whose ball, as they were playing, had flown over into the next yard, and they bored through so as to recover their ball. Directly it was discovered a sentinel was placed by it to prevent its being enlarged; but it was then no bigger than that a head could be thrust through; and afterward, through the hole in the wall, the sentinel remonstrated with the prisoners on the other side.

All the prisoners who were subsequently examined protested on oath that the perforation was not made with intent to escape, or to get at the armoury so as to provide themselves with weapons. This, however, was the view taken of it by Shortland, and in a fit of nervous fear he ordered the alarm bells to be pealed and the military to be called out. These latter issued from their barracks with drums beating to arms. This was at ten minutes to six in the evening.

This sudden and unexpected alarm excited the attention and curiosity of the prisoners, and they poured forth from their wards, filled the inner yard and rushed to the outer gates. They suspected that fire had broken out.

“Among so many as were in the depôt,” says Andrews, “it is reasonable to suppose that some mischievous persons were among them, and among those collected at the gate were some such persons who forced the gates open, whether by accident or design I will not attempt to say; but without any intention of making an escape, and totally unknown to every man except the few who stood in front of the gates. Those back naturally crowded forward to see what was going on at the gates; this pressed and forced a number through the gates, quite contrary to the intention of either these in front or those in rear.

“While in this situation Captain Shortland entered the inner square at the head of the whole body of soldiers in the garrison. As soon as they entered Captain Shortland took sole command of the whole, and immediately drew up the soldiers in a position to charge.”

Here ensues a difference between the report of the commissioners appointed later to investigate the matter and that drawn up by the prisoners. These latter assert that the officers of the regiment, seeing what was Shortland’s intention, refused to act under him, and withdrew. The commissioners state that the hour was that of the officers’ mess, and that they were at dinner, and only two young lieutenants and an ensign were with the soldiers. But this is incredible. The alarm bell pealing and the drum calling to arms would have summoned the officers from their mess, and we are rather inclined to believe that the account of the Americans is correct. The officers saw that the Governor had lost his head and was resolved on violence, and they withdrew so as not to be compromised in what would follow. The officers, says Andrews, perceiving the horrid and murderous designs of Captain Shortland, resigned their authority over the soldiers and refused to take any part, or give any orders for the troops to fire. They saw by this time that the terrified prisoners were retiring as fast as so great a crowd would permit, and hurrying and flying in terrified flight in every direction to their respective prisons.

“The troop had now advanced within three yards of the prisoners, when Captain Shortland gave them orders to charge upon them. At the same time the prisoners had all got within their respective prison yards, and were flying with the greatest precipitation from the point of the bayonet, the doors being now full of the terrified crowd. They could not enter as fast as they wished. At this moment of dismay, Captain Shortland was distinctly heard to give orders to the troops to fire upon the prisoners, although now completely in his power, their lives at his disposal, and had offered no violence nor attempted to resist, and the gates all closed.