The sickness became so great, and the attempts of the prisoners to escape so frequent—twice by setting fire to the hulks—that on the 2d of April, 1813, all the prisoners in the Plymouth hulks were ordered to be sent to the war prison on Dartmoor. There were then in the hulks about 700 officers and men. Two hundred and fifty constituted the first draft, and they were marched the seventeen miles to Prince Town, where the war prison was.
It was in 1803 that it was decided to build the great war prison on Dartmoor as one of the surest and most inaccessible places in England. Prince Town on Tor Royal, 1400 feet above the sea, was chosen, and there upon the edge of this lonely moor, with its Druid circles, its unfathomable bogs, its weary waste of windswept land, the prison was built. It was designed to hold 10,000 prisoners, and with barracks outside to hold a guard of 2000 men. It was surrounded by an outer wall, circular in shape, one mile in circumference and sixteen feet high. Inside, thirty feet distant from this, was a lower wall, the top of which was provided with numberless intersecting wires attached to bells, the least disturbance of which would rouse the guard at once; on the top of this inner wall was a path, on which at every twenty feet a sentry with loaded musket walked night and day. Within these walls were the guard-house, turnkeys, prison clerks, and the office of the captain of the prison. The hospital was comfortable, well lighted and aired, and the arrangements good—due to Dr. MacGrath, who was very popular with the prisoners. There were also storehouses, all surrounded by an additional wall, so that escape seemed impossible. The buildings for the prisoners were seven in number, built of the hard, rough, unhewn stone in which Dartmoor abounds. They were three stories high, 180 feet long by 40 broad. Each would contain about 1500 prisoners. Attached to each was a cachot, or dungeon, built of stone, arched at the top, where offenders were confined without any bedding and on two-thirds allowance of food. These several prisons were separated from the others by a wall, and No. 4, equally large, was also separated by a wall. Adjoining No. 4 were Nos. 5, 6, 7. Within each prison was a yard, through which ran a stream of pure water.
In these prisons, at the time the Americans were sent, there were some 8000 French prisoners of all ranks, many in a very bad state physically from crowding, bad food, etc.
When the first draft of the Americans arrived each was given a hammock, blanket, bed-bag, and flock, and most of them were sent to No. 7. It was the worst of all the prisons, for here French captives were confined for committing assaults, robbery, and other crimes on their fellow prisoners. Each story was a large loft, with nothing to heat it. In each were six joists with hammock-hooks, and the hammocks were slung so close together that a man could scarcely squeeze out when all were in place.
The climate was very cold, with fogs in winter, and the walls continually dripped with moisture. Captain Isaac Congreve, R.N., was the agent for the prisoners on Dartmoor. The American agent was Mr. R. G. Beasley.
The treatment of the Americans was always more severe than that of the French; they were much more turbulent and independent, and the guards said they would rather guard 20,000 French than 1000 Americans. About May 1, 1813, Captain Congreve ordered all American prisoners to be collected and put in No. 4. At this time there were in this prison about 900 of the worst of the French prisoners; the prison was very dirty, containing many sick, and it swarmed with vermin. The clothes issued to the prisoners to last for eighteen months were one woollen cap, one yellow jacket, one vest and one pair of trousers, one pair of woollen socks, one shirt, and one pair of shoes made of list, with wooden soles. They were allowed the liberty of only the yard of No. 4; none could pass the gate; and within a month they addressed a letter to Captain Congreve asking why they were thus harshly treated. His answer was that it was by order of the Board of Transport. They then addressed a letter to Mr. Beasley, the American agent in England, telling him of their scanty food and naked condition: that the ration for the whole day made but one bare meal, and that many prisoners had taken service in the English navy,
