The present pay of the common soldier is ten sols a day and a ration of provisions, but no wine when quartered in towns. They are furnished by the state with necessaries; so that the money is for pocket expences only. The name of the general officer now commanding here is Klingly. He is a native of Alsace, and one of the largest men I ever saw, being at least six feet four inches high, and proportionably stout. I have once dined in his company, and sat next to him, when he told me, that he had been in England, and, among other parts of it, at Castle Howard, the seat of Lord Carlisle; but in what capacity he had visited there, he did not explain to me.----His birth is reported to be obscure, and his advancement sudden.-------- Adieu. LETTER IX. Quimper, 15th April, 1795. By a news-paper, which I lately read, I find that the miseries and complaints of the English prisoners here have at length been communicated to our government; and that Sir Morton Eden is absolutely arrived in France, in order to negociate the terms of an exchange. This subject, which I have forborne to touch upon before, is a very serious one; and a relation of the sufferings which the prisoners of war here have undergone, from the injustice and cruelty of their treatment, would form a most afflicting narrative. The following statement, which was drawn up on the spot, by the Honourable Mr. Wesley[F], and transmitted to Mr. Pitt, you may depend upon as a genuine and faithful representation. “Quimper, 18th October, 1794. “In the beginning of July last, the prisons of Quimper contained about 2,800 fine young men, about which period a jail distemper broke out among them, which has already carried off upwards of 1,200. This disease still continues to rage with violence, and is not to be attributed to any general ill state of the air, but to the following local circumstances. “First----Want of cleanliness, from there being no necessaries provided, whence the whole circumambient air becomes contaminated by so many people. “Secondly----Bad provisions, and those in very small quantities, the daily allowance for seven prisoners being only six pounds of bad black bread; every fourth day these seven persons receive also two pounds of salt pork among them; and on the intermediate days they are served with a scanty mess of horse-beans. They have bad water, and no wine, or any spirits of any kind; nor have even those who possess the means leave to purchase those articles. “Thirdly----Want of bedding and clothes, the commissary of the prison of Pontenazan, near Brest, having stripped the greater part of the victims, who had the misfortune to pass through his hands, of their clothes, bedding, and money[G].