of granite from the surrounding hills, and cost about 127,0002. other feet than your own along the blackened floors. O'er all there hung a shadow and a foar, We will now suppose that the visitor has passed through the highland village of Prince Town, with its turf smoke and its peat stacks, and is standing before the main entrance of the prisons, as they were some ten years since; gloom and restraint before him the gray The number of prisoners at Dartmoor at hills of heather, with all their freedom of one time exceeded 10,000. There were among earth and sky, stretching away from him in them subjects of almost every European govall directions. The form of the whole enclos- ernment- Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, ure is circular, with a segment cut off. In Swiss, Germans, Poles, Swedes, French of all this is the principal entrance; a lofty arch, departments, from the vine-covered hills of formed of huge masses of granite, chiselled in the south to the broomy "landes" of Brittaheavily cut letters, with the words PARCERE ny; and, towards the end of the war, AmeriSUBJECTIS. Passing through an outer court, cans, one of whose greatest complaints was the visitor then found himself on the military that the blacks (upwards of one thousand in way which surrounded the whole building, number), who had been taken in the vessels between the extreme outer wall and that en- with them, were confined in the same prisons. closing the courts of the prisons. The outer Almost every trade and profession was here wall is a mile in circumference, and sixteen represented. Soldiers and sailors- among feet high. Round it, when the prisons were the latter the crews of very many meroccupied, went a chain of bells, fastened to a chant ships-formed, of course, the mawire, the slightest touch of which set every jority. But there were also artists, literary bell in motion. On the top of the inner-wall and scientific men, many priests-or, pera guard was placed, at the distance of every haps we should say, ex-priests and ordinatwenty feet. Crossing the military way, and ry workmen in great numbers. One of the still in a line with the main gates, a small prisons, to which its inmates gave the name square is entered, which served as a market for the prisoners, from whose court it was divided by a strong iron railing. To the right and left are the hospital, and a barrack for the guard within the walls. Beyond the market square are the prisons themselves, seven in number, divided by two lofty walls into groups of three, thus leaving one prison in a court of its own in the centre. Ench prison had a small yard attached, through which ran a stream of the purest water (d'une crudité meurtriere, says M. Catel, who would have preferred a rivulet of cherry-brandy), supplied from a reservoir fronting the main gates. Encircling the courts of the prisons, and within the inner walls of the military way, ran a strong and lofty iron railing, on which lamps were fixed, supplied with powerful reflectors, and kept burning not only at night but also during mists and dark weather. A dreary cachot, stone floored and vaulted, for the punishment of the refractory, was attached to the first group of prisons. of le petit cautionnement (the Americans called it "The Commodore "), was set aside for the officers of merchant ships, state officers who had broken parole, and had been retaken, and especially many of those (among them a negro general) attached to the expedition against St. Domingo under General Rochambeau, in 1803, when, it will be remembered, the sudden rupture of the peace of Amiens led England to join in the blockade of Cape Town, where Rochambeau surrendered at discretion, and was himself sent to Jamaica. These Domingo officers had in their prison an excellent military band, which was permitted daily to execute those national hymns, those warlike marches, which on the field of battle had electrified our armies of Egypt and of Italy. Their heroic tones put our cruel keepers to shame, and, rousing our national pride, elevated us far above our tyrants." So says M. Catel, whose ingenious Récit Historique we shall henceforth use, so far as we can do so with safety; a matter of some Each prison is three stories high, 180 feet difficulty, since its lively author has thought long, and 40 broad; and each could contain fit to "furbelow his plain discourse" with a 1500 men. One story in each building formed series of narratives as startling and romantic but a single apartment, having six parallel as any Surry Theatre melodrama. On the rows of upright joists running its whcle length, other hand, Mr. Andrews, of New York, tells to which the prisoners fastened their ham- his story after a plainer and more straightmocks. Low-roofed, long, and obscurely forward fashion, contenting himself, by way lighted, these gloomy rooms were sufficiently of embellishment, with a few hard words cerie during the abandoned condition of the prisons. As you passed up the broad, dark staircase leading to each floor, and gazed into the shadows of the lengthening chambers, you caught yourself half listening for the tread of equally divided between the English guard and his French brethren in misfortune. His Impartial Narrative is to be admired. But still we confess a leaning towards the Récil of M. Catel. To adopt worthy Mrs. Primrose's distinction; we like my Lady Blarney vastly-so condescending; but Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs has our warm heart." resigned themselves philosophiquement to the 5. The Kaiserlichs. Gamblers like the last, but who had attained a more imperial elevation above human cares and necessities. When the annual supply of clothing was distributed a pair of trousers, a yellow jacket marked with black letters, a shirt, and a pair of shoes the Kaiserlichs at once sold their allotments to the highest bidder, and went all the rest of the year barefoot and shirtless. As soon as the prisons were filled, the French, of their own accord, proceeded to "organize a constitution." First of all the inhabitants of each prison elected a president, and then each separate apartment chose its own commissary, who was to bear rule under the former. The suffrage was universal, and the election by ballot. As a necessary consequence, bribery and corruption were altogether banished from this retreat of equality and fraternity, and none were chosen for either 6. Last and lowest of all, the Romans. So office who were not the "wisest, virtuousest, called because they occupied the highest story discreetest, best" among the whole commu- of each prison, called the Capitol. They posnity. The authority of the presidents and sessed no single article of clothing. Each inan commissaries extended to every point on which wore only a blanket-looked upon as common it could possibly be exercised. They were at property with a hole cut in the middle, once magistrates, judges, and policemen, and through which the head was passed. In orsometimes had to carry their own judicial sen- der to become a Roman, it was necessary that tences into execution. On one occasion the the candidate's hammock should be sold, and cooks of a certain ward were condemned to tobacco bought with the proceeds for the endeath by the president and commissary, be- joyment of the whole society. They might be cause unfortunately a number of rats were seen in the common passages of the prison, discovered boiled in the soup. They were five or six together, fighting like dogs for some respited, however, on making a sufficient chance bone or potato peeling; and on one ocapology, and laying the crime of the unhappy casion, when the governor's cart had been pottage to the door of the perfidious British sent into the court of the prison, the Romans guard. At another time, a prisoner convicted seized the horses, killed and devoured them. of having stolen a shirt was deprived of his When the "Capitol" was closed for the night, political privileges, declared incapable of vot- their general, who alone had a hammock, but ing at any elections, and finally sent to Cov- without mattrass or covering, arranged his entry for a period of six months. But ennui, men in two lines on either side, and at the says M. Catel, "marked him for her own.' word bas all stretched themselves on the floor He was taken to the hospital, and died there in perfect order and silence. Even the solitary of "langueur. We will add, and not from blanket was laid aside in their own wards; M. Cater's authority, that all offenders did not but the general, beside the dignity of his hamescape so easily as the cooks. It is known mock, was allowed on certain occasions to that very many murders-judicial or other- wear a kind of uniform, of which the emwise-took place within the prisons. Among broidery was of straw, curiously worked. their inmates were men well acquainted with Once, when the whole body of the Romans, various methods of secret despatch, fortunate- about six hundred in number, had been per ly unknown in this colder-blooded north, so mitted to visit the court of another prison, that the judges of the Dartmoor Vehme had they seized the supplies in the kitchen, actno difficulty in finding officers who could car-ually made prisoners of the guard sent to supry out their sentences with scarcely a mark of press the riot, and then paraded the court with external violence, if they happened themselves loud cries of Vive l'Empereur. The guards to be unlearned in such matters. were speedily relieved, and the Roman gen The whole body of the prisoners were self-eral dismissed to the cachot; but the scanty arranged under the following heads:military strength which could be allowed for Dartmoor was a source of considerable apprehension during the whole time the prisons were occupied. -- 1. The Lords. These were the richer prisoners, who received regular supplies from home, and carried on a traffic within the walls, making their own purchases at the grating of the market square. They had from sixty to eighty shops in each prison, where they sold tobacco, thread, soap, coffee, &c. 2. The Laborers. Those who worked at different trades, thereby supplying themselves with the means of procuring something more than the ordinary prison comforts. 3. The Indifférents, who did nothing, but VOL. III. 43 CCCCXCIX. LIVING AGE. Many details respecting these unhappy Romans are here purposely omitted, although M. Catel does not hesitate to relate them, and we have been assured of their truth from other quarters. But the reader will easily conceive them as exhibiting perhaps the very lowest degradation of which humanity is capable. An intense passion for play, manifested more or less by the whole body of prisoners, was the main cause of their condition; but crime They were at last removed altogether to the in all its shapes was common among them, prison No. 4, which was separated from the not the less horrible on account of the reck- others. Regular supplies in money and clothless and frantic merriment-gaîté, M. Catel ing were sent them by our own government calls it with which it was accompanied. four times during the year; but all was got And yet among them were some of the best rid of within a day or two. At last (M. educated men in the prisons. M. Catel thinks Catel has of course forgotten this instance of it necessary, before telling their story, to perfidy) they were taken from their prison, apologize for them by asserting that in the clothed, and put on board a hulk at Plymvery heart of London whole bodies of men outh, where they were allowed no interare to be found equally miserable and equally course with any but their guards, and caredegraded. We will not ask whether the pur- fully watched until their release at the end lieus of London are worse than those of Paris, of the war. They were then 436 in number. because neither one nor the other has anything to do with the matter. What was exhibited at Dartmoor was that same dark tendency of human nature which in all ages has led men encompassed by great and irremediable difficulties the sword or the fiery pestilence to catch at the first enjoyments that present themselves. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." The bad then indeed be come worse, Till sometimes their most devilish merriment The French government, from the beginning, contributed nothing whatsoever toward the support of the prisoners. By our own they were supplied with clothing and sufficient daily rations of bread, meat, and soup, and a small sum of money. Each man had his own place in the prison, with a table, stool, and hammock, which last he was 'obliged to take every morning into the court, where all were piled up under cover. Every day the prisoners were counted in their yards, where, on the great anniversaries, they got up promenades processionelles, headed by the tricolor. A horn sounded at night was the signal for all to retire within the buildings. berless methods of beguiling their weariness. The mass of the prisoners discovered numTheir country's glory, says M. Catel, sustained them in their misfortunes. In addition to the regular English supplies, large France; and with these and their own earnsums were sent to many from their friends in ings, this class traded with the country people admitted to the market grate, and beestablished coffee-houses in each building; came the merchants of the prison.† Some others set up as cooks; and a certain ragout of mutton, potatoes, and peas, called ratastate of society in refined and luxurious cities, which every European language was taught, touille, is especially commended. Schools, in It is worthy of notice, that the Romans of were to be found within these murs gigantDartmoor, in spite of their ten years' in-esques; together with others for writing, prisonment, winter and summer, utterly without clothing, were more healthy than any other men in the depôt. Their bodies, says Andrews, had acquired a sort of hardness, like that of the stones on which they slept. At Dartmoor everything tended to this result, far more even than in a crowded and plague-stricken city. The throng of prisoners, housed together for long and dreary years, were, it must be remembered, without any of that surveillance which they would have had as criminals or convicts. The object was merely to keep them in safety. Moreover, the mass of them was from classes always more or less uneducated; but in the then state of France utterly without any training but what was military. Can we wonder that they should have become thus degraded, when we have but to turn to the pages of Boccaccio or Defoe to learn what was the under circumstances far less unfavorable? *Wilson's City of the Plague. drawing, mathematics, music, and dancing. There was no lack of books; and many of the younger men, who were passed in unable to read or write, left the prison with a good attendance. There were a few instances of suicide among both French and Americans. * Wooden shoes were provided for them. †They were, however, frequently brought to To prevent imposition, the prices of provisions the hospital in a state of suspended animation, were fixed before any were allowed to be taken from which they were recovered by the usual into the market. Jews attended in great numprocesses. The general sanitary condition of bers, to sell old clothes, and to buy the carvings, Dartmoor was, considering the great number of &c., of the prisoners. One of these worthies met men assembled, remarkably good. The hospital an honest farmer, quietly jogging across the moor, was admirably cared for; and the attention re- and, accusing him of having escaped from the ceived there is acknowledged on all sides. Fever prison, insisted on taking him back for the sake and small-pox were at one time introduced; and of the reward. The Devonshire Dinmont saw his the Americans suffered much. But these dis-own advantage in the matter, and consented. He orders were most skilfully treated; and lotters of acknowledgment were afterwards sent by the prisoners to Sir George Magrath, the surgeon in was, of course, recognized at the prison, to the dismay of the Jew, who was obliged to pay handsomely for his mistake. stock of general learning. There was a theatre, where French comedies were performed with considerable éclat. Many were greatly skilled in straw and hair work, as well as in bone and ivory carvings, of which specimens are still frequently met with. A ship, two inches long, made of bone by a sailor of St. Malo, and so minutely finished as to be an œuvre sans pareille, was sold, M. Catel says, for 2500 francs; which we will not insist on the reader's believing. they were compelled to associate, and declared that they had no heart," like the cockle in the fable, to sing and dance whilst their house was burning over their heads." In one respect, it must be admitted, they had sound reason to complain. They were at first placed in the same prison in which the French "Romans" had been assembled; and although these last were soon afterwards removed to Plymouth, the shortest possible association with them must have been sufficiently revolting. Desperate fights took place more than once between them and the Americans. There was another sort of work, however, in which they excelled, and which was not stopped without much difficulty. Spanish dollars were collected for them in great num- Few prisoners succeeded in escaping from bers by persons without the prison, and from Dartmoor; but the attempt was frequently every dollar they contrived to produce eight made, and the most vigilant guard was necEnglish shillings. There was also a manu-essary, since it was well known that regular facture of Bank of England notes among plans were organized for their escape, and them, for which it was suspected the guard that the large rewards many of them were furnished materials. So perfect was the imitation, that even at the bank itself the forgery was long pronounced impossible. In order to stop it, the guard was always searched before relieved. Many thousands, however, were put into circulation in this manner. Such of the prisoners as were able were allowed to engage themselves as masons and carpenters on the works connected with the prison. Thus, two of the main prisons, and the walls of the chapel at Prince Town, were entirely built by the French themselves, at the time of their first removal from Plymouth to Dartmoor. Others were employed in repairing the roads, as blacksmiths, coopers, and painters, and as nurses in the hospital. All wore a small tin plate in their caps, and worked under the eye of a guard. If a single prisoner escaped, the pay of the whole party to which he belonged was forfeited - a plan found sufficiently effectual. able to offer had induced certain persons to become their agents in the matter. Eightoared boats, of a peculiarly light build, and painted so as to escape observation, were in waiting at different stations along the coast; and a sort of covered cart, with strong doors at each end, and seats within, for a number of persons, was contrived for their inland carriage. No less than 464 foreign officers, many of them persons of considerable rank, and importance, broke their parole, and succeeded in escaping, between 1809 and 1812; when Lord Sidmouth, in introducing his bill for punishing, by transportation, such persons as should be convicted of assisting them, declared that, up to that time, there had been no single instance of an officer in the English service having broken his parole. The realities of these escapes were often sufficiently romantic, since the French officers were scattered throughout most of the principal towns, and had frequently to undertake a long inland journey before they could reach the coast.* But neither this, nor the stone walls. of Dartmoor, proved an effectual obstacle. From Dartmoor some of the French managed to escape, by mixing with the guard, at night; and, during the intensely cold winter of 1813-14, a party of Americans actually succeeded in scaling the prison walls, although most of them were retaken. On this part of the matter M. Catel has dwelt at length, and with no inconsiderable powers of romance. There is a story of the escape of two pris-oners, who had taken part in a comédie, and who passed the gates, still dressed for their Thus, in spite of their troubles, the mass of the French at Dartmoor (says Andrews) "really seemed easy under them, lived well, and made money to lay up." They were in generalfort gais;" but although agreeing with the fat Knight of Eastcheap on most points, they differed from him in the matter of honor, holding it to be more than an airy word. They were, it appears, on this head d'u 'une grande susceptibilité. The combat au pugilat was frequent, but the more refined preferred duels with broken scissors or points of compasses fastened to long sticks. It is to be hoped that their kind of honor had more skill in surgery than Falstaff's. M. Catel declares that frightful wounds were constantly * Officers on parole were allowed by our gov. the result of these encounters. But, notwith-ernment (France contributed nothing) eighteen-. standing all this, the prisoners in general pence a day. Their liberty extended to one mile's regarded themselves as brethren in misfor- distance of the town in which they were quartered.. They were to be in their lodges at a certain hourtune, with the exception of the Americans, of the evening, and twice a week every officer who kept as much aloof as possible from the was obliged to present himself before an inspee "ghastly fluttering phantoms" with whom tor. 1 the "grand empereur "and the tri-color; but on the whole we have both French and American testimony to their forbearance and general kindness. Strange recognitions sometimes took place between them and the prisoners. One evening a sentry on guard at the inner wall, commanding the courts, was found in a state of considerable alarm and agitation. On inquiry, it turned out that he had seen, or fancied he had seen, among the prisoners, a man whom he believed he had killed in a hand to hand fight, some years before, at Talavera. He could not be mistaken, for the look of the dying man he declared had haunted him ever since. The prisoners were examined, and those who had fought at Talavera made to pass before the sentry. Among them was the man whose supposed death had troubled him -no ghost, having been severely wounded, indeed, but recovering to fight another day. parts, as M. and Madame Calonne, for which were planted so as to command the main we give him great credit. Another is of a party entrances.* M. Catel complains that the who escaped in the dress of the English English soldiers, on many occasions, insulted guard, getting, with some difficulty, to Plymouth, where they were suspected and followed; but, when the mob saw the glitter of their bayonets, they took to their heels at once; for all the world knows, says M. Catel, with what terror the English are always seized at the sight of l'arme blanche;* -how they succeeded in getting on board a certain Milord's yacht-how they were received there, with champague and bols de ponch; how they played deeply, and won guinées and "buncks-notes," without end: how they managed to carry Milord and his yacht straight into the harbor of St. Malo, instead of Jersey;-how Milord was taken to Paris how the emperor set him and his yacht free, without a moment's hesitation. and how, as a necessary consequence, la jeune lord s'enthousiasma fort de l'Empereur; all this, and much more, will be found, with ample details, in Mr. Catel's edifying Récit. "Souvenez vous, cher Marquis," asks the Notwithstanding the failure of all negotiadisguised valet, in Molière's comedy, "detions for an exchange of prisoners, caused, as cette demi-lune que nous emportâmes ensem- is well known, by Napoleon's insisting on a ble au siége d'Arras?". "Que veux tu general transfer, instead of one of French for dire," is the reply of the more thorough-paced English; † notwithstanding also that the hero," avec ta demi-lune? C'étoit bien une French government had in no way contributed lune toute entière." to their support or comfort, the prisoners, The duty of the guard at Dartmoor was no during the whole time of their detention at very pleasant one, and on some points the Dartmoor, continued firm in their devotion to soldiers required as much watching as the the emperor. The news of the allies having prisoners. They carried in forbidden articles entered Paris, although it promised their -such as rum, candles, &c., under their great immediate release, was received almost as a coats, and certainly assisted in distributing calamity. Some persons who visited the the forged bank-notes. They caused much prisons at this time distributed among them tribulation, also, at Plymouth, by turning a quantity of white cockades, together with a off, in order to catch the trout, the leat that large white standard, the old flag of the Boursupplies the good town with water; thereby bons. This last they destroyed at once, in bringing an infinite loss on the corporation, sight of the officers standing on the wall; and for whose especial delectation the said trout having themselves mounted the tricolor, fastwere reserved. But in all difficult circum- ened the white ribbons on the heads of the stances, with one exception, the guard-fre- dogs belonging to the prison. They were requently a detachment of some militia regi- leased in detachments, and marched five hunment-behaved admirably. On one occa-dred at a time, to Plymouth. The number of sion, when the prisons contained about eight prisoners in England who were thus set free thousand men, a serious disturbance arose, in consequence of biscuit- having been distributed among them instead of bread. The French assembled in their courts, and were only prevented by the quiet firmness of the guard from breaking through the gates en masse. As it was, the bars of the principal gate were broken by stones hurled against them from within. It was thought necessary to send for guns from Plymouth, which The reader has, perhaps, heard a different story. But we none of us know ourselves. "Here come the French dogs, huzza, huzza, huzza,' shouted the crow of an English ship, and this free translation was given on the spot-"Voici ces terribles Français notre dernière heure est arrivée." The prisoners, says Andrews, did not consider the walls, nor the soldiers, any great obstacle to their escaping in a body; but they well knew that, supposing the sortie effectually made, the militia would be raised on them long before they could reach the coast. English, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italian, He required" that all the prisoners, French, should be exchanged, man for man, and rank for rank, on the same footing as the principal powers under whose banners they were respectively ranged. The effect of this would have been," continues Alison, "that Napoleon would have obtained restitution of fifty thousand French soldiers in exchange for ten thousand English prisoners, being all whom he had in his custody."History of Europe, vol. xiv. p. 104. |